


Daniels

by Taelr



Series: Alien: Neomorph [1]
Category: Alien: Covenant
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2018-12-05 16:04:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11581443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taelr/pseuds/Taelr
Summary: Daniels wakes up to the news that Walter survived, David is taken care of, and the Covenant crash-landed back on the same god-forsaken planet she was trying to leave in the first place. She and Walter have never been close, but always found it easy to be around each other. The more time she spends with him, the more obvious it becomes that they would have been good friends in different circumstances. In these? She's not sure yet, but she's determined to be patient for as long as it takes to find out. He is a synthetic, after all, but then again, he's all she has. She's never counted him as anything less than her equal. Time passes, though, and she finds herself thinking of him as  much more than that.





	1. Duty

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a companion to Walter. It can be read before, after, or at the same time as its other half. This work is from Daniels' perspective. I will update them alternately. Enjoy!

She woke with a start. _David. Tennessee. Those . . . Things_. She shuddered, all of her senses on high-alert. Well, as high as they could be. She felt as though she’d been hit by a bus. She hadn’t even moved yet aside from opening her eyes, but already she’d noted that just breathing hurt; a cracked rib or three, if she had to guess. A part of her brain wanted to blame David for throwing her across that room two days before, but she recalled her adventure with the crane and then with the _alien_ or whatever it was that had been on the Covenant.

 _The Covenant_. It was at the thought of it that she realized. No metal or plastic or other high-quality materials surrounded her. She was not in a normal, standard-issue bunk like the ones on the Covenant, or in a stasis pod. A high stone ceiling arched above her. All at once, nausea and claustrophobia set in.

“No.” She mumbled, forcing herself to sit up. Her chest ached sharply in complaint and her abdominal muscles felt like jelly trying to lift her, but somehow she managed. She had a mind to swing her legs over the side of the makeshift bed she was in, but stopped abruptly as she took in more of her surroundings. Stone walls. Stone floor. One window cut high in the far wall, with no light filtering through. Was it night? Was she underground? She had no way of knowing. She didn’t recognize this room, and that was enough to send her further into panic. She tried to move but vertigo hit her hard and she bent over the side of the bed and retched onto the floor. She needed . . . A weapon. A rock. A stick. Anything. Something.

The last thing she remembered was David looking down at her as hypersleep forced itself upon her in the stasis pod. She retched again. Very little would come up besides clear, watery fluid with a horrible taste that she knew to be her own stomach acid. How long had she been unconscious? Where was she? Where was the Covenant? David?

A small, painful pang hit her chest when she realized that if David was on the Covenant before she fell unconscious, Walter must be dead. She didn’t know him that well, not really as more than an acquaintance. But the quiet words shared with her after Jake died . . . She retched again. Or tried. Nothing seemed to be left inside of her. She wanted to move but felt momentarily paralyzed by nausea and grief. It was a solid five minutes – or so she estimated – before she could bring herself to move at all. Even then, all she could do was turn her head to take in the room around her. Aside from the bundle of cloth and blankets she was lying on, there was only a stone table against the wall beside her and a single, dimly lit lantern on the wall. The table was too large to be of any use, and contained no drawers in which to hold anything useful. She found it odd that no dust covered the surface of the table, but didn’t have the interest to pursue an answer. She was looking for a weapon, and so far nothing promising had shown itself.

She froze when she heard footsteps. They came from somewhere beyond her vision, past the door on the opposite side of the room, which was dark. They were human footsteps, she was sure of that. Well, not _human_ , necessarily, but she was sure they weren’t animal or _something else_. She heard shoes, she was certain she heard shoes.

David appeared in the doorway. He seemed to have healed, for there was no gash in his cheek and his gait seemed uninhibited by any injury. He was missing his left hand, as Walter had. As he had in the Covenant. He must have removed it somehow before returning and claiming to be Walter. He was not wearing the uniform he had stolen from Walter, or the clothes and hooded robe in which they’d first seen him. He stood before her in a dull, uncolored brown and off-white shirt, and brown pants. His shoes appeared to be leather, and his hair was slightly mussed but had clearly been combed not long before. He looked like Walter. She hated herself for not being able to tell the difference. Her head spun as she tried to comprehend everything her senses were sending to her brain. It felt like a lot, too much. There was nothing in this room that could be used as a weapon. She looked again just to be sure. The bed was all that there was within reach anyways, and it was just a heap of blankets and things strewn over a slab of stone. She grasped at the blanket which lay over her legs, feverishly thinking of some way she might use it against him.

He took a step forward and she snarled at him. It was a foreign noise to her, inhuman, really, but it was all she had. She wanted to speak, to spit at him and swear and threaten him for all she was worth, but she couldn’t get the noise past the lump in her throat. She hated him. _Hated him._ She had lost Jake because of the storm, but everyone else? They were gone because of David.

“Daniels,” he said, with Walter’s accent.

“Shut up,” She spat, finally finding her voice. “I know who you are. You might as well speak like yourself instead of imitating him.” She didn’t know why it bothered her so much, that he had the audacity to continue acting like Walter.

“Daniels,” he said again, more softly. His accent was unchanged. His facial expression was concerned. He had his arms at his sides, but his hand was turned palm-up, in an action akin to surrender.

She glared at him with all of the hatred she could muster. “Where’s Tennessee? Where are we? What . . . Did you do?”

“It’s me,” he said, “It’s Walter.”

“No!” She screamed, throwing herself from the makeshift bed. “No, no, no!” Her legs wobbled dangerously when she hit her feet, but miraculously she stayed upright. Every step felt like fire throughout her entire body, and her ribs felt as though they might collapse in on themselves. Her legs were stiff, unable to straighten properly, but she quickly made her way across the room towards him. It was a lurching stumble, but she made the distance faster than either of them expected, it seemed. She had no real plans for what she’d do when she got there. She just knew that she had to try to kill him. She had nothing left to lose. She got close enough to be within arm’s reach, and then she lunged again. She hit his abdomen solidly with her shoulder and gasped when the shock sent waves of pain jolting through her, but she closed her hands around his throat as they tumbled nevertheless. She moved to sit on his chest, pinning his upper arms with her knees.

“Daniels,” he sputtered, sounding more surprised than hurt.

“Fuck you!” she shouted, punching him solidly in the face. Her fist stung and one of her knuckles split from that initial impact alone, but she punched him again. And again. And again.

She was distantly aware of him repeating her name quietly, sounding more like he wished to parlay than he was trying to stop her. He raised no hand against her. The logic of this didn’t puncture through her fury, though, and she continued to punch him. She saw red, felt her pulse in the base of her skull and heard the blood pounding in her ears. It hurt. She kept pushing anyways.

She brought her fist up for another strike but halfway to his face he caught it in his own. The sudden stop jarred her entire body and a grunt of pain escaped her. She tensed up, preparing for his counter-attack, but all he did was quickly shove her backwards while still maintaining his grip on her hand. Then he was the one pinning her to the ground, and before she could react he had her other hand firmly in his grasp, as well.

“Daniels,” he said, calmly. Too calmly for her to respond reasonably.

“Fuck you!” she said again, this time more quietly. It was almost a whisper.

“Daniels,” he said again, his voice rising in pitch. “Stop for a moment and think. Please. I. Am. Not. David.” He said the last four words emphatically enough for her to stop struggling against him.

“No!” She said, biting back a sob that rose in her throat. “Walter is dead! David was on the Covenant! I found out just before stasis . . .” She screamed and strained against him with everything in her, to no avail. She flew into hysterics, every survival instinct and emotion she’d experienced in the past few days overwhelming her all at once, and somehow got a hand free. She used this to beat on his chest until she didn’t have the energy to continue.  There were more words tumbling out of her mouth, but they ran into each other and made no sense and trailed off as the tears came. She didn’t really know if she cared enough to live anymore. She went limp in his grasp, turning away from him as much as she could as she dissolved into a sobbing mess.

Against her expectations, he didn’t shake her, hurt her, or push her around. “Daniels,” he said softly instead, “You’re in shock. David thought he’d killed me so he took my clothes and returned with you to the Covenant. I came around in time to see you leaving the atmosphere. I don’t know what transpired after that but the Covenant itself came crashing out of the sky three days later. It landed approximately two miles from here, but the impact jarred this entire structure and the smoke was not hard to follow.” He paused, seeming to take measure of her face before continuing.

She was still pinned beneath him, with her head turned away, but she was listening. The tears came silently now.

“David was badly injured, but still intact. However, I had the advantage due to my healing abilities, and I was able to dispose of him.”

Daniels shivered, recalling David’s use of similar words when she’d thought he was Walter. Was this Walter after all? Or simply David, attempting to gain her trust and then use it against her? “Tennessee?” she asked quietly. The tears had subsided. She felt empty inside, devoid of emotion. It seemed as if it had all been used up.

“His pod was destroyed.”

“And the colonists? The embryos? Surely _some_ survived.” She was looking at him now, slowly taking in his features and asking herself whether this could really be Walter. She paid extra attention to his cheek, now smooth, where David’s had been torn open and stapled shut.

“Fourteen colonists survived the crash. Only three survived the journey here from the site. Two of them are comatose, as I feared you to be. One passed yesterday morning. The temperature control was completely shot when the crash occurred, resulting in the loss of every embryo.”

She stared at him, scanning his face for any detectable proof of dishonesty. There was none. But there had been none when she’d thought David to be Walter on the Covenant, so she wasn’t sure why she even looked. “How long ago?” she asked.

 “The crash took place four days ago,” he said matter-of-factly.

She tried to take it all in, nodding once. “And you? You said David thought you were dead.”

“I am the latest model of my kind,” he stated calmly. “My healing abilities are far superior to his.”

She nodded again. “Will you let me go now?”

He studied her face for a few seconds before sitting back and releasing his hold on her hand. “You should be resting in bed, not engaging in arduous activities such as these,” he said.

“Where are we?” she asked, taking in her surroundings again. “Not back where . . .” she trailed off, horror encroaching on her numb peace.

“In the days that you were gone I rid this place of all life forms created or perpetuated by David,” he said firmly. “I have left the dissected creatures and taxidermy for my own study, but they are entirely dead and harmless, I assure you. Doctor Shaw’s body has been buried.”

This was unexpected news. “Her body?” she asked, confused.

“David killed her and dissected her, I can only assume shortly after landing here, if not before.  Her preserved remains were in a room not far from the dissected creatures you saw in his study.”

She felt like retching again, but couldn’t. The shock of this news was dampened by David’s behavior and her discovery of his experimentation and _farming_ of those . . . Things, but it was still horrifying to think about. She sat up and attempted to stand, but her legs would not hold her. It would seem she’d used every ounce of remaining muscle power in her legs in her desperate stumble across the room earlier. Her arms weren’t in much better shape, but still had enough strength in them to hold her up. She attempted crawling, only to discover that her knees were so badly bruised that tears sprang to her eyes and a gasp escaped her unchecked. So she began feebly scooting towards the bed, dragging herself along with her arms.  

“Are you sure it’s safe here?”

He watched her attempts, reaching out a hand to help but not actually touching her when she nearly collapsed as she attempted to crawl. He stood as soon as she began dragging herself along and quickly stepped to her side, extending his arm to help. “David left much of the place open to _visitors_ because they would not harm him and he had plans for our group when we became his unexpected guests. I have sealed off much of the place, and secured the rest. There is still much to be done, but I began removing the corpses in the courtyard, as well. This room is perhaps the safest in the entire complex,” he assured her.

She continued her efforts as he spoke, but finally gave in and lifted her arm to his grasp in surrender. She was suddenly tired, so, so tired. He knelt, putting his arm under hers and across her back and taking firm but gentle hold of her underarm on the other side. Then he rose slowly. She grimaced and her legs would barely move, but he seemed to sense her determination to remain on her own feet instead of being carried, so he escorted her slowly to the bed. It was a painstaking process, and when at last he eased her down to sit on the edge of it, she released a heavy sigh and realized she’d been holding her breath.

“Where are the others?” she asked, looking to the empty doorway and suppressing a shudder at the darkness beyond. She’d fancied herself to be rather fearless, what with the new life in space and all that, but the last week had entirely wrecked that notion.

“Just down the hall,” he said. “Past a rather large door. It is the only access to this place.” He moved as if to leave and then stopped, turning to face her again. “I intend to rid this planet of the plague unleashed here,” he said firmly. “And then, if you are willing . . . I will help you build a log cabin by a lake. I have not searched, but I am sure that metal nails would have survived the crash.”

She stared at him for a moment, comprehending what he’d said, recalling David’s reaction to her last words before she’d realized he wasn’t Walter. This must be him. Her insides were heavy and hurting but something small and light felt like it lifted off in her chest. David must really be gone. “Thank you,” she said, quietly, looking away and thinking of Jake.

“Oh,” he said, and the way he said it made her look up again. “I believe this is yours. I found it and cleaned it as best I could.” He pulled from around his neck the necklace that she had made from one of Jake’s nails after the neutrino blast. The one she had stabbed David with. He handed it to her, and she took it almost reverently. Then he turned away again, as if to leave. “I’ll bring you water and some broth that I’ve concocted,” he said as he started towards the door.

“Walter,” she said, and he stopped and turned around to look at her again. “Why me?”

He raised his eyebrows questioningly.

“Why am I in the safest room in this place, and not the others? Why did you even think to return this?” She dropped her eyes to the nail in her hand, running her finger along its length.

He blinked once. “Duty,” he said, and then he turned and left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize that this chapter is short but I got to the end here and it just felt like the right place to leave it. I absolutely intend to update this on the regular, so with work and everything else I'm juggling I'll try for every day, but I know it's most likely going to turn into every couple of days or once a week. Thanks for reading, and any comments and suggestions are always welcome!


	2. Recovery

She woke up screaming, drenched in sweat, and shaking all over. It was such a dramatic departure from unconsciousness that she jerked into a sitting position before she knew what she was doing, and the waves of pain hit her as soon as she did so. Her already bruised and broken body had been under enough duress two days before when she first woke after the crash, but her initial reaction to seeing Walter had made everything worse. Muscles that had been sore and stiff from lack of movement after injury were forced and strained, and today she could barely move. It wasn’t even the excruciating pain that stopped her so much as her muscles’ actual unwillingness to comply with her wishes. They were simply too stiff to move much at this moment.

Her focus shifted sharply from the pain exploding throughout her body when Walter sprinted into the room. He was an android, unhindered by most things that affected humans such as herself. Nevertheless, his face was flushed and he appeared to be almost panicked, going off of his facial expression. “Daniels,” he said, and her name sounded almost like a sigh of relief. He seemed calmer after that, but still strode quickly to her bedside. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she said, but her breathing was still hitching at unusual intervals. “Just a dream. I’m sorry for alarming you.”

“No need to apologize,” he said, looking her over.

She felt like she should be blushing. But his gaze was purely medical in nature, she knew. He was surveying one of his patients, taking note of her condition and waiting for her recovery. Without realizing it she looked him over, as well, reminding herself that he was Walter, not David. His missing hand stood out as the only sore spot on him now, but she noticed a wet mark on the front of his shirt, as well. “Cleaning again?” she asked, letting her gaze lift to his face. He was looking back.

“Rounds with the colonists,” he said, glancing down at his shirt.

“How are they?”

“The woman is doing poorly, but I believe the man may pull through.” He looked over her shoulder at the wall, seeming as though his thoughts were distant for a moment.

“Do they have names?” she asked. It was a silly question, of course. Obviously they had names, but what she was truly asking was whether Walter had found any way to discern what those names were.

“They had bracelets,” he said at length, “Before the crash. She lost her arm from the elbow down, so I do not know her name. His was intact but burnt badly, so all I could read was his surname.”

She stared at him, watching his facial expressions, analyzing the way he spoke. Sometimes she caught herself tensing up in his presence, waiting for the violence, the snarky remarks she’d come to expect from David in such a short time. They never came, however. This was Walter. He was kind and patient and as understanding as one could expect an android to be. Perhaps more understanding, honestly.  “And?” she prompted, as he had stopped speaking.

“Stevens,” he said with a slight shrug. “Did you know any of the colonists?”

She shook her head, settling back and letting herself sink onto her back again. Her shoulders ached, but she’d found that lying on her back was the only way she could sleep. Turning one way or another put far too much pressure on her ribs, and her stomach wasn’t an option. She was far too jumpy to face away from the door these days. “I just wondered about their names. So many people, so many lives . . .” She trailed off, considering the crew she had lost and the far larger number of colonists that had perished.

Walter nodded. “Would you like me to bring you something to eat?” he asked. “Of course, if you would like to sleep longer then I will leave you to do so.”

She shook her head again. “No. I’ve had enough sleep, thanks. Something to eat would be great, but you don’t have to get it for me.”

“I insist,” he argued.

But she was already sitting up again. She’d barely gotten one leg over the side of the bed, however, when she realized how futile it all was. Her _everything_ hurt like a bitch, and there was no way her shaky muscles were going to support her right now. She could barely make it across the room to her makeshift toilet. The thought of it made her face redden. Walter was playing nursemaid, tending her wounds and dressing her split knuckles and cleaning up after her. He’d cleaned her vomit after she’d initially regained consciousness two days before, refusing to let her do it. He came and replaced her bedding and the bucket she used as her temporary toilet regularly, and brought her broths and water and some strange fruits he’d found growing nearby. He did all of it without being asked, insisting that she needed to rest and regain her strength. He never complained, never slowed. The knowledge of how long she’d been unconscious and the fact that bodily functions continued even when a person was comatose like that was what colored her cheeks.

“Thank you,” she said. It sounded sudden and out of place, but made sense in her head after her recent train of thought.

He tilted his head questioningly, as she’d found he was apt to do when she blurted out things like that.

“For taking care of me. You clean me and everything else and . . . I’m sorry you had to do that. I’m sorry I can’t do it myself.”

He frowned, already beginning to shake his head before she was even done talking. “You needn’t apologize,” he said. It seemed like he said that to her so often. “I am hardly a doctor, but I am certified for basic medical care and procedures. There’s no need to apologize, or thank me. I do what I need to, because it needs done.”

She looked away. “I’m sorry it’s taking me so long to recover. I wish-”

He cut her off with an actual laugh.

Surprised, she stopped talking and looked back to his face.

He smiled wryly and said, “With all due respect, you crash-landed. After, I may add, an entire ordeal here. It will take time for you to heal. I have no problem doing what I can for you in the meantime.”

“I can’t even walk,” she protested. “I shuffle along like some . . . Zombie.” She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “I thought I was fucked up after David and those things before we left, but now . . .” She stopped, grimacing at her own mention of David.

“Falling from the sky in a metal can will do significant damage,” Walter consoled, “You are fortunate to have survived.” She wondered if he was trying to subtly change the subject. Again, he smiled wryly.

This prompted her to wonder if she would ever see a genuine smile on his face. She thought back and tried to recall if she ever had before. No occasions that she could remember came to mind. “Yeah,” she said after a moment. “I guess so.”

“There is water here,” he said suddenly, and she looked at him with more focus, confused enough by his statement to be brought out of her thoughts. “I could prepare a hot bath, if you would like.”

She looked down at herself, noting that as clean as she was – Walter had done his best with a cloth and some water when he recovered her from the crash site – a bath would do wonders for her morale, if not for her healing as well. “That would be nice,” she admitted, nodding and looking up again. “But again, I can barely make it across this room . . .”

Walter nodded, but had a resolute expression on his face. “Perhaps in a few days when you’ve healed more?” He asked. “I would have no qualms about assisting your journey to a different room. There are pools on one of the lower levels, hot springs. I had intended to find a large tub of sorts and bring the water to you, but I could easily carry you down.”

“Aren’t the lower levels where David took Oram?” she asked, suddenly entirely turned off to the idea.

“One of the rooms there, yes,” he admitted. “I assume the warmer temperatures were ideal for the creatures he kept there.” He cleared his throat, seeming to notice her disgusted expression. “I wiped them out entirely, however, and the pools are on the opposite end of the complex.”

She sighed and thought it through. “Breakfast while I think about it?” she asked.

He nodded, stepping back towards the door before turning away from her. “I’ll return shortly,” he promised.

 

She sat there for a while, staring down at the one leg she’d slung over the side of the bed. The other was tucked up under her, and as painful as that was, bending things seemed easier than straightening them. It was almost as if splitting her scabs to bend her knees or elbows wasn’t as bad as the point her joints reached when she tried to straighten them. They always stiffened and then just stopped entirely. She couldn’t recall ever being quite this fucked up before. She laughed, a short, quiet sound. “Jake would be pissed,” she muttered. Not at her, of course. But at the creatures that had done this to her, at the crew for not being around to keep her safe, at himself for failing to protect her. She could easily pin him when they’d wrestled before leaving earth, but he had always insisted on acting as a protector and guide. Thinking of him still stung, probably worse than the rest of her, honestly. But so much had happened since she’d lost him, it almost felt like a distant pain. At least he’d been laid to rest in space, and not torn to pieces here or on the Covenant by any of those things.

She looked down at her stomach to find a couple of rolls, but she knew it was only because she was hunched forward and not because she had any meat left to her. She hadn’t looked at herself since regaining consciousness here, not really, but she knew her naked figure wouldn’t be pretty. Not that she’d ever really prided herself in her appearance or loved the way she looked, but in spite of Walter’s best efforts to bring her food and keep her hydrated, her body was looking quite worse for wear. It was bizarre, how quickly the recent events had taken it out of her. She estimated that it would be a couple of weeks before she started to regain any weight, and her muscles would be weak after all of this sitting around waiting to heal.

Walter returned with her meal, and she marveled over the unfamiliar fruit he brought her, as she had every time he set it in front of her before. These were new, shaped much like a pomegranate but such a deep purple that they were almost black.

“Not to question your judgement,” she said, “But are you sure these are safe to eat?”

He nodded. “I have run every test and analysis I can on them.”

“Every one, huh?” she asked. Half of a smile made its way to her lips.

“I ate them with no side effects, long before I began bringing them to you,” he said, nodding.

She frowned. “You’re not a lab rat,” she chided. “I need you around. Thank you for trying them first, but don’t risk yourself for me, please.”

His expression went blank momentarily, and he inhaled deeply before answering. He smiled at her, closed-lipped and almost apologetically. “It is my duty to ensure your wellbeing,” he stated.

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, cut the crap,” she said, grabbing a piece of fruit. “Thank you, by the way,” she added, nodding towards what he’d brought her. “Anyways, this isn’t some fancy ship or space excursion with a purpose. You’re not here to serve or be less than. I appreciate your concern, and everything you’ve done for me, Walter. I do. But you should take care of you, too. Unless one of our colonist friends wakes up it’s just you and me, and you know I’d go insane by myself.”

“I doubt that,” he said, adding hastily, “That you would go insane. While I hold little hope for our female friend, Stevens’ condition seems promising enough.”

She nodded, suddenly thinking on what it would be like to be stuck on the planet, the only woman with two men. Well, an android and a man. She shoved the thought away, unwilling to face the idea of never seeing anyone else again. Unwilling, also, to count Walter as something less than human. He wasn’t human, of course, mostly due to the flaws David himself had shown. David’s model had been too human; too emotional, too capable of personal aspiration and desire. Walter was new and improved, made to serve as a helpful companion. Somehow she thought humans had started to view androids differently, too. Or perhaps it was just her perspective and experience with the rest of the crew. Walter had been a valued member of the crew, not some lesser servant. He had been a good friend, and a better caretaker. He had saved her life several times now. He had gone to lengths to protect her that even Jake hadn’t. Jake had never been pressed to do so in any situation like that, of course, but there was something about knowing that Walter had done that . . . At the same time, Walter was still an android. Not that she minded Walter’s presence or had anyone left alive that she truly knew or cared about on earth or elsewhere, but still. The idea of being stuck here, forever, was a crushing weight on her chest when she really considered it.

“I found books,” Walter said, interrupting her thoughts.

“Books?” she asked, suddenly interested.

“They’re not in English, sadly,” he said, “but with some time, my programmed languages and translation abilities may just be enough.”

She nodded, pleasantly surprised. “A book would be nice,” she said.

“And a bath?” he asked.

It seemed so forward to ask it like that, but she knew he didn’t mean it that way. But innocent intentions or no, she felt her ears burn for some reason, and she took a bite of fruit to distract herself from that uncomfortable realization. “A bath would be great.”

He nodded, but frowned when she followed up with, “But.”

“But?” he asked, looking as though he expected her to make some ridiculous demand. He wasn’t far off, really.

“I want to walk.”

His expression protested before his words did. “It is not a short stroll,” he started, but she wouldn’t hear of it.

“I want to try,” she amended. “As far as I can. Then you can carry me like the helpless wreck that I am.”

He just stared at her for a moment, seeming to study her face. He seemed confused by her frustration and stubbornness, though there was also something in his eyes. _Admiration_? He eventually sighed and nodded. “Fine. But first, food. You need nutrients to heal properly.”

She nodded grudgingly and continued to eat.

“I’ll leave you to it,” he said, stepping away from the bed. “I need to take the appropriate items to the pools for you.”

She nodded, and he left.

 

He spent much of his time here with her, talking to her, passing her miserable days stuck in this bed, in this room. She felt like a prisoner, but by no fault of his. She knew that she was free to leave this room and walk the entire complex if she liked, but she was physically incapable and unwilling to ask for his help. He was already doing so much. She felt selfish and helpless for needing him to carry her to a bath, as it was. He cared for the colonists and cleaned the complex, but she knew he’d all but temporarily halted his efforts with the courtyard and the rest of the place until she was well enough to at least leave this room instead of sitting alone in the dimly lit place. He had offered to take her outside, but she trusted the outside world less than the shadows now, and preferred to stay inside until she could regain her strength and at least have a chance at defending herself should she need to.

He returned later, and she made it all of the way down the hall before collapsing. He tried to help her, but she refused and walked as well as she could by herself until she couldn’t even crawl anymore. Then he picked her up and carried her through many doors and down corridors. It seemed confusing when she wasn’t the one deciding which turns to make, but she trusted him and recognized several familiar rooms along the way. There were sloped floors in some places and stairs in others. It was at the base of some stairs that she looked around a large room, lit by two dozen lanterns or better, with large pools in the floor.

It occurred to her when he set her down on a bench against a wall that she would need his help, but she waved him away when he offered. He nodded and turned away as she attempted to pull off her clothes. It was a long, grueling process, but he never tried to force his help, and she never asked for his assistance. Eventually she was naked, and she took a moment to stare down at herself. She was pale from being indoors for so long, her skin splotchy and bruised. She had more shades of purple and brown and green on her than a frog, with red scabs scattered across her skin, as well. All of her joints seemed to display torn skin and large scabs, and she had two particularly deep gashes in her right thigh.

She looked up then, estimating the distance between where she sat and the closest pool. It had to be about fifteen feet away, but after all of the effort she’d made just to walk down the hallway outside of her room earlier, it looked more like a mile. She stared at it for a moment, leaned forward as if to rise from the bench, and nearly collapsed onto her face. “Walter,” she said quietly, embarrassed.

He turned, looking at her face the entire time he bent down to help her. Again he looped his arm under hers and around her so that he could lift her to her feet.

She found that she did, in fact, have the strength to feebly shuffle her feet along. He was carrying her, really, but it felt less humiliating this way. There were stairs leading into the pool, and he walked right into the water with her before easing her down onto a seat. It was hot, but not enough to burn. The water stung her open wounds, but she could feel her joints loosening and the rest of her softening almost right away. There were seats in the side of the pool, like a hot tub back on earth, almost. Walter stood, however, up to his stomach in the water. She realized that he was soaked up to his chest.  “Your clothes-”

“No matter. There are more. I can easily change later. And here, I have what I believe to be soaps and cloths to wash yourself.” He turned, producing a cream colored rectangle that looked oddly similar to a bar of soap from earth.

“Soap?” she asked, suddenly on edge because it seemed so out of place in this stone complex.

“There were humanoids living here before David and Doctor Shaw’s arrival,” he reminded her. “The Engineers, as I believe they were dubbed by Doctor Shaw.”

Recalling the corpses outside, Daniels looked away. So much unnecessary death.

“They had stores of many things we might find both familiar and useful, soap among them. I did much exploring before the crash and after, while you were unconscious.” He handed her the soap, moving to get her a cloth.

She thanked him for it and began slowly scrubbing her arms. Well, scrubbing was a massive overstatement; she was so bruised that any heavy pressure was excruciating. Still, she tried. He made sure she was comfortable and then walked out of the pool, moving to sit on the nearby bench. It was an effort to give her some privacy, she supposed. He turned to regard the rest of the room, and she was grateful for the moment’s reprieve from anyone else’s eyes. She took her time, washing her face but struggling to get her arms to cooperate.

A dilemma presented itself when she attempted to reach up to scrub her back and found that the weight of her own arms was simply too much. “I can’t lift my arms above my head,” she said disbelievingly. She laughed, but it was pained. “I feel . . .” she scoffed, more at herself than anything, and then sniffed. Tears as hot as the water she was sitting in welled up in her eyes, but she fought them. Blinking a few times, she looked down until the liquid cleared some. When she did look at Walter again, he was looking at her once more, but still seated.

“Would you like some assistance?” he asked.

She shook her head. “This is ridiculous,” she said angrily, though her emotions were not directed at him. “You shouldn’t have to help me like this. You shouldn’t have to see me like this.”

“With all due respect,” he interrupted before she could go on, “I have medical training. I have helped perform procedures, and I have seen a woman give birth. You’re hardly the first naked person I’ve dealt with. You’ll be well enough to do all of this in a matter of days, but until then I am only here to help.” He paused, looking across the room for a few seconds before he went on. “Only if you would like my help, of course.”

She sighed, looking down at herself again. It wasn’t that she hated being helped, or that she even cared that he was around her while she was naked. She just felt so _weak_ and _useless_ and everything was bothering her like something touching an exposed nerve. She looked at him again, and he was watching her, waiting patiently for her response.

She finally lifted the cloth and soap and held them up in surrender, and he rose and walked back into the pool.

“Allow me,” he said.

She handed him the soap and turned away to offer her back to him, relieved at how much easier it was for her to maneuver with the water carrying most of her weight. She felt so much lighter. Walter took the soap and cloth to her back, gently but with enough force to clean. Then he handed them back to her and she continued washing herself. He retreated to the bench once more when he was done, but she needed his help again when it came time to wash her hair. At least there wasn’t much of it to wash, so that was brief. Neither of them spoke until it was over, and then all she could say was, “Thank you,” as he helped her back out of the water. She supposed the whole ordeal should have felt more awkward or uncomfortable than it had, but Walter looked at her with nothing but the desire to help in his face.

Sitting there, wrapped in a towel and trying to dry herself off, she realized how grateful she was that of all the people she could have been marooned with, it was Walter. She had been close to some of her crewmates, but none of them would have been capable of making this situation as bearable or comfortable as Walter had.

 

After that the days ran together with a regular pattern finally establishing itself. Walter still took plenty of time to care for the colonists and maintain his watch on the rest of the complex, but he spent much of his time in the room with Daniels while she recovered. He brought her the first book he had selected for his translation attempts, and they leafed through it and discussed possible subject matter it contained to pass the time. He still brought her meals, but now they made the journey down to the lower level every other day. Baths seemed to help her mentally and physically, and she had grudgingly accepted Walter’s offer to help her walk as far as she could each time, rather than stumbling along by herself.

The days passed and she could cross more distance with each trip. Eventually, though still stiff and healing, she began walking to a different room for meals, and they ate together in front of a large hearth. Two weeks after she woke up in her stone room, she could walk all of the way to the hot springs without his aid, albeit stiffly and slowly. He stopped helping her bathe then, and generally brought his book to try and decipher more the words within. He had offered to leave her entirely when she no longer needed his help to get in and out of the pool of water, but she had refused instantly.

“I don’t feel safe alone,” she explained, realizing how quickly she’d shot down his idea of giving her privacy.

“I understand,” was all he’d said, and from then on he read while she bathed and then walked with her, back to her room or wherever she was going after her bath. Mobility meant no more temporary toilet in her room, which was a relief to both of them. It was to her, anyways. She assumed it must be one less thing for Walter to worry about, as well. She felt so much better as she regained her independence, but there was still much that she couldn’t do. And much that Walter refused to let her do for herself. He still took great care to clean and dress her remaining wounds daily, and she often found herself sitting in front of him while he observed her healing knuckles or the gashes in her thigh.

It was a full month later when she realized that she’d never apologized for attacking him when she first saw him, and that he’d never brought it up. “I’m sorry for coming at you like that when I woke up here,” she said at one point over breakfast.

He shook his head immediately. “You believed that I was David,” he said simply. “It was the most obvious explanation and you had no reason to give credence to my claims otherwise.”

She had assumed he felt that way, but it was still a relief to have put the entire situation behind them. The more they talked, the more she was certain; this was Walter. They had discussed much over the past month, everything from what he’d found at the crash site to her description of what had transpired on the Covenant after she and Tennessee returned. The female colonist had, as expected, passed away. Daniels would have liked to be present at her burial but because she was buried outside of the complex and beyond the courtyard itself, she stayed inside while Walter took the body and laid it to rest. The male colonist Stevens was surviving even now, but he was weakening. Walter was doing all that he could with the limited medical supplies that they’d found, but the longer the man went without waking up, the weaker his body became. Walter had gotten him by on broth and water so far, but it wasn’t enough to sustain the man indefinitely. Now they were waiting for him to wake up, or for him to die.

The longer she spent with no company but Walter’s, the less she recalled what socializing had been like in a large group of people. Their conversations were long, their walks around the complex becoming steadily longer, and he was more familiar now than she had imagined he would be, even after losing everyone else. It was for this reason that one day, when he was trying to catch her attention by using her name, she corrected him.

“Daniels,” he said, looking elsewhere because he needed her help. They were in one of the abandoned rooms on an upper floor, clearing away dust and cobwebs and searching for any new, useful items that might be hidden away.

“Dani,” she corrected.

He had been leaning to look behind a large table, but he turned abruptly to look at her instead. “Dani,” he repeated. “Is that your first name? Dani Daniels?” A smile curled the corners of his lips.

She stared at him, amazed. He was actually smirking at her. “No,” she said after a few seconds. Her own lips had begun twitching. “Dani Daniels . . .” She actually managed a laugh. “No. It’s just short for Daniels. Tennessee used to call me that.”

Walter nodded, remembering. Their smiles had departed at the mention of Tennessee, but he seemed determined to lighten the mood again. “Do you not have a first name?” he asked.

“I do,” she said, the ghost of a smile returning to her lips.

“And?” he prompted, much as she often did to him.

“And I don’t like it, so you’re not going to know what it is. I prefer Dani. I never took Jake’s name because then I wouldn’t be able to go by Dani anymore.” Her smile was back, though she didn’t know why.

He nodded. “Fair enough,” he said.

She smiled. “If it’s duty that made you save my life and take care of me, then I guess _duty_ should make you call me Dani and respect my wishes.” There was a hint of sarcasm in her voice.  

He seemed caught off guard. He blinked several times, slowly, and then nodded. “I suppose,” he said.

She watched him, tilting her head curiously. He seemed almost dazed. “Walter?” she asked after over a minute of silence. “Are you okay?”

“Running some internal tests,” he said immediately, though his expression remained unchanged and his gaze distant.

This piqued her interest. “Tests? Is something wrong?” She was worried suddenly. Was Walter malfunctioning?

“I believe there may be a bug in my system,” he said eventually, focusing on her again and seeming to come back to himself. “I have suspected for some time, but I never could find any source.”

She was frowning at him now, her expression clearly fearful. The one colonist remained, but she only had Walter to keep her company. If something happened to him . . .

He noted her expression and stepped back towards the table. “No matter,” he said reassuringly, “If anything, it’s a very small issue that will most likely resolve itself. _It’s nothing life or death_.”

She stared at the back of his head as he went back to leaning over the piece of furniture. For the last month she had been so focused on her own recovery that it hadn’t even occurred to her that Walter might have been damaged or internally injured. The very idea of something happening to him, of no longer having his company to keep her sane, was enough to put a lump in her throat. She’d become unexpectedly attached in the last month. Not emotionally, she told herself. Walter was a friend. But he was the only friend she had on this entire planet. She was worried about him because she cared about his wellbeing but also for the sake of her own sanity. So she told herself, anyways.


	3. Tempest

Dani was still healing, but she was in much better shape than she’d been after the crash. Her ribs still ached occasionally, but for the most part she was doing fine. She started exercising more than she ever had back before she and Jake left earth, though helping Walter relocate corpses in the courtyard and continue to clean and fortify the temple was plenty of work in itself. She was on the floor holding a shaky plank and silently counting the seconds when she heard a noise and looked up. Walter was standing just inside the doorway, seeming surprised. “Sorry,” he said, sounding almost embarrassed.

She brought her knees up under her and sat up, making a face. “For what?” she asked, watching him closely. Walter had been acting a little . . . _off_ recently. Not in a frightening way, just off. She’d been keeping an eye on him lately, trying to determine what was going on in that head of his during all of his quiet moments. He was always a perfect gentleman when she bathed, keeping to his book and never looking at her unless it was absolutely necessary, or until she was clothed. But anytime she w _asn’t_ naked or otherwise indecent in some way, he seemed to feel freed of his obligation to maintain a normal amount of looking. She had caught him staring at her several times, but he always told her that he was running internal scans or otherwise busy in his own mind. He made it sound like he was lost in himself, unaware of where his eyes were at the time.

But she’d seen him run such tests before. When he did, his eyes became unfocused and his expression went blank. When she’d found him watching her his expression was usually composed but still animated, and his eyes were always bright and focused. Still, she hadn’t really brought it up after the first time he deflected her questioning. But here he was again. “Were you watching me?” she asked, tilting her head to the side and offering a confused, closed-lipped smile.

Walter stiffened where he stood, shaking his head. “I walked in and you were on the floor. It caught me off guard,” he said simply.

She nodded, though she knew her expression clearly said that she didn’t believe him. “You okay?” she asked, standing up and brushing off her knees.

“Most assuredly,” he said, nodding.

“ . . . Okay,” she acquiesced, but her frown lingered. She walked to the table, which was now covered in items that she’d collected as they explored the temple and the grounds beyond. She stopped and looked back over her shoulder when Walter spoke, though.

“Did I . . . _disturb_ you?” He said it like it pained him, which was why she turned to look at him so quickly.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. Her frown had gone, but she felt her expression soften. “No,” she said again, “Of course not. Why would I be disturbed?”

Walter blinked, his expression closer to blank than Dani was comfortable with. “I simply wondered,” he said, looking away.

“Walter, you don’t disturb me. You’ve never disturbed me. Where did that even come from?” She had picked up a glass figurine before he spoke, but now she set it down on the table and walked to him.

“I was watching you,” he said. That seemed to be the only explanation he was willing to offer.

She laughed. “And? You do it a lot. I don’t see how you doing it today is different than yesterday or the day before that.” Her voice wasn’t sharp, but she was teasing him. Walter wasn’t hard to be emotional around at all, whether she was laughing or crying. She smiled, but it faded quickly.

Walter seemed to have closed up entirely.

Suddenly worried that she’d said something wrong, she took another step towards him. “Hey,” she said, “What’s going on with you? I was joking, Walter. Please don’t be mad.”

Walter looked up at her abruptly, seeming concerned. “I am not upset with you,” he said, eyes a bit wider than they ought to be. He seemed suddenly desperate to make sure she knew that.

“Okay,” she said, nodding. “You don’t seem pleased, either.” She wondered if she shouldn’t press this, if she should just let it go and return to watching him when he wasn’t watching her.

He bowed his head. “I was . . . concerned,” he said finally.

God, all of these three word answers were killing her. Walter had never been one to get extravagant with his words but really? Usually he was somewhat emotive when they spoke. “About disturbing me,” she said, and it was only halfway a question.

“Yes.”

“Because you were looking at me? Why would that disturb me?” She was standing right in front of him, looking up into his face and feeling a frown crinkle hers again. Except it was a concerned frown, not an angry one. She was pretty sure he knew that.

“It’s not in my programming.” Walter ground the words out haltingly, like it was also not in his programming to say them.

“Looking at people?” she asked, now thoroughly confused.

“Watching them. I am programmed to analyze and observe, but that is all.”

Dani felt like she was missing something. She was sorry for saying it, but, “That’s a really vague answer, Walter,” came out of her mouth.

He seemed uncomfortable, actually taking a step back and away from her. This made something in her chest twinge, and she had to stop herself from following. She chose a different tactic. “Wait,” she said, shaking her head. “Obviously I’ve made you uncomfortable. I didn’t mean to do that. We don’t have to talk about it and you don’t have to explain, Walter. Really. I just want to make sure you’re okay.” A small smile played on her lips. “I worry about you, you know.”

He visibly relaxed, sighing softly. “I don’t know how to explain it.” It sounded like an apology.

“Then don’t,” she said firmly. He had looked away, and had yet to return his eyes to her face. “Hey,” she said, stepping forward and reaching out without thinking about it. She touched his arm, more out of habit and instinct than conscious decision. She wanted him to acknowledge her, and she felt that she needed to acknowledge his obvious discomfort here and let him know that it was okay.

He tensed all over again when she touched him, though. When he looked at her it wasn’t discomfort on his face, though. He seemed more confused than anything. She drew her hand back, biting her lip and letting her eyes wander for a minute, embarrassed for some reason. Her ears burned and she felt her face heating up, so she quickly turned and walked back to the table. The sight of her makeshift bed brought a different subject to mind and she was desperate to redirect the conversation to safer water anyways, so she said, “I was thinking I’d like to move out of here, go upstairs.” She toyed with a scroll she had laid out, but stopped when Walter responded.

“No.”

It didn’t sound like an order, not really. More like alarmed denial, honestly. She turned around to face him again, met with suddenly burning eyes and a frowning face. He read the look on her face and quickly amended, “It’s not safe enough. This is-”

“The safest room in the temple. I know.” She raised her eyebrows. “We’ve barricaded and closed off every entrance except the front one, and that’s become ten times more complicated to get through. I walk around up there all the time. I haven’t seen one of those things in here since before I left with Tennessee.”

“I have.” Walter seemed unsure again, though Dani wasn’t sure why.

She felt her eyes widen. “Inside the complex?” She asked, stumbling over the words with her mouth even as her brain stumbled over comprehending the idea. “When?”

He was silent, looking uncomfortable again.  

She thought back wildly, sifting through every memory she had since waking up in this place. Nothing. Not once had she even seen one of those creatures, let alone _inside_. “Did something happen while I was unconscious?” she asked, reading his face as best she could. An almost panicked expression crossed it then, but he composed himself quickly. He looked like he was arguing with himself, so she took a step closer, still a few strides away from where he stood. And then it all poured out of him, more eloquently and smoothly than it would have if he were human, of course, but still all at once. The words didn’t trip over themselves and the sentences all made sense but there was something about the way he said it; mechanically and quickly and quietly. It was like he didn’t want to tell her but he was going to anyway, so he was getting it over with as quickly as he could.

“I carried you back from the Covenant and brought you to this room. It was the safest place I could find for you while I retrieved the other survivors and the supplies. But you were feverish and your temperature dropped dangerously. I had no choice but to relocate you to the main level in David’s previous quarters, where there was a fireplace. There is no door to close that room off from the rest of the temple, but I was trying to keep you warm.” He sounded ashamed, like he’d failed her by putting her in danger and he thought she’d hate him for it. “It came in the middle of the night. I closed my eyes and was lost in thought and I should have been more alert, but I wasn’t. It was standing right over us, though it couldn’t see you. I assume your vitals were so low that it didn’t sense you. It touched my arm, and it was gone.” He looked down at his left arm, where he was missing his hand.

Dani took a moment to absorb all of this information, but something tripped her up before she got to the end. _Us_ , he’d said. _Standing right over us_. “Were we in the bed?” she asked.

“Of course. It was the warmest place in the room-” Walter stopped abruptly, looking as though he’d just revealed a devastating secret. He stared at her, seeming surprised and almost nervous.

She hated to trick him like that, but she was sure she’d never have gotten a straight answer if she had tried and asked any other way. She almost asked why he had been in the bed, too, but then it occurred to her. She hadn’t been worried about any ulterior motives, not from Walter. But the understanding of _why_ he must have done it made a strange feeling explode in her chest for just an instant. She tilted her head. “Were you trying to keep me warm?” she asked, her voice so much softer than before.

Walter nodded. “It is my duty-”

“Yeah, I know. Duty,” she interrupted. Then she tilted her head, glad that he was still holding her gaze instead of looking away. “Thank you. You saved my life. _Again_.” She laughed the last word instead of speaking it. She’d lost count of the number of times Walter had been there to save her. Her ears started to burn again when the implications of Walter keeping her warm began to sink in. He would surely have maintained their decency, but the knowledge that he’d been pressed against her for an entire night was strangely . . . She didn’t know what to call it. It was definitely something to think about later, though. Not now, when he was standing here, watching her curiously.

She realized that the original subject of this conversation had been overlooked, so she decided to take them back to her earlier statement. “Nothing has happened since then, though,” she pointed out. “I just want to get out of this basement, Walter.” It sounded so much more fervent and desperate than she’d intended, but that was fine. It was honest. “I don’t even care about windows. A fireplace, or a real bed, or a desk.” Some of those things could be moved down here to this room, she knew. But she wanted breathing room. She wanted to be on the main level or higher, not hidden below.

Walter opened his mouth and then closed it. Twice, actually. When she stopped talking he bowed his head again. “I could build a door for David’s quarters . . .” he started, but Dani interjected.

“That’s where you stay, isn’t it?” she asked.

This didn’t seem to be an issue for him. “I can easily move elsewhere,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “No,” she said. “I won’t kick you out of your own space. Screw that.”

Walter simply looked at her. “There are no other rooms as comfortably furnished,” he pointed out.

“I don’t care,” she said stubbornly. “That’s your room now.”

“Dani,” he said it so quietly she barely heard, but something in her twinged pleasantly at the sound of it. She had told him to call her that, but she wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to hearing him say it. Not that it was bad when he said it, not at all. It just sounded . . . different . . . on his lips. “I don’t sleep,” he said, pulling her from her thoughts. “I have no need of sleeping quarters.”

She frowned again. “It’s still your space. I won’t invade it,” she said.

“It would hardly be invasive,” he assured her. “With a door-”

“I don’t want a door,” she argued, feeling bad but also still very stuck on her stance here. Unexpectedly for both of them, it seemed, her face crumpled. “I just want _one_ goddamn place to walk around without being locked in where I can feel safe in my own space,” she said, and tears welled up in her eyes. She hated this basement because she felt like a prisoner even though she wasn’t. There was something about locking herself in here every night that had started to get to her a long time ago. She didn’t mind that Walter accompanied her everywhere else. In fact, she’d rather he accompany her than for her to have to close herself up in this place one more damn time.

“It would be unsafe without a door,” Walter protested again.

“But so is the rest of the place,” Dani pointed out, on a new track now. “I’m safe enough walking around because you’re there.”

He frowned, watching her like he wasn’t sure where she was taking this or if he was being persuaded to agree without realizing it.

“What if I just . . . slept there?” she asked, wincing at how unsure she sounded.

Walter’s eyebrows lifted and his eyes widened fractionally.

“I don’t want to steal your bed,” she started, but he was already shaking his head.

“I do not utilize the bed, Dani.”

“Well, then would I be _allowed_ to sleep there, _without a door_ , if you were there, too?” She hastily tacked, “Just in case, obviously,” to the end of that question, just because.

Walter looked like he might shrug, which was still something Dani wasn’t used to seeing him do. But he didn’t, opting instead for a thoughtful glance around the room. “It would be preferable for a door,” he started, undeterred by Dani’s frown when he said it. “But.”

“But?” she asked, waiting.

“But,” he said again, “I would feel better if I was able to be present, even _beyond_ the room . . .”

Dani laughed. “Like a guard. Okay.”

Walter seemed at a loss. “I am only trying to ensure your safety,” he said.

“I know,” she said, smiling. “But you can sit in there with me if you want. It’s not like you aren’t with me when I bathe and do just about everything else anyways.”

Walter looked like he wasn’t sure if that was a complaint. He said nothing, still looking at her.

 

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” she asked, setting a small pile of clothes on the top of the small dresser next to the bed.

Walter nodded. “I’ll give you a moment to change,” he said, exiting the room.

Dani rolled her eyes at the doorway after he’d gone through it. Walter had seen her naked plenty of times now, whether when she spoke to him while bathing or before, when she’d needed help with so much. Still, there was a certain part of her that appreciated his manners. She didn’t exactly want him to stand there and stare while she undressed, but he really didn’t have to leave the room. He could have simply looked away. “I’m clothed now, I promise,” she said loudly when she was sitting on the edge of the bed. Walter had brought what he could salvage of her belongings from the Covenant, so she had her own shorts and a shirt to sleep in.

He returned briefly, moving to sit at a desk near the door and turning his head to look at her. “Make yourself at home,” he said genuinely.

Dani barked a laugh before she could stop herself, apologizing immediately after. It was just the way he’d said it . . . Walter seemed unbothered, and she figured he was used to humans finding things amusing that he hadn’t meant that way. She crawled into the bed and turned on her side, facing the door and Walter. “The weather’s getting colder,” she noted, watching the fire dancing behind the engraved metal grate on the fireplace. “Do you think we got here before their winter started?” She continued to watch the fire.

“Perhaps,” was all Walter said.

Dani didn’t look up, but she was certain that he was staring at her again. She considered mentioning it, but the thought of how that had gone earlier changed her mind. “We have the supplies to winter here, right?” she asked, sounding more sure than she felt.

“I have studied many of David’s records of the seasons in this place. And I brought much of what could be salvaged from the crash site,” he said. “Though there is much more still to be exhumed from the wreckage.”

Dani smiled to herself. “Exhumed,” she said quietly, dramatically. She wasn’t making fun of him. It was just amusing to hear some of the more interesting vocabulary words that came out of Walter’s mouth sometimes.

He seemed to take this as a question. “Exhumed,” he repeated. “To dig out something buried, especially a corpse, from the ground.”

Dani blinked. “That’s a little dark,” she said, looking at Walter. As expected, his eyes were already on her when she found them.

“It is only the technical definition,” he remarked. “I intended it to mean ‘dig up’ or ‘bring forth’.”

Dani couldn’t help her smile. “I know what you intended, Walter.”

He seemed perplexed. “Then why did you-”

“I like listening to you talk,” she said, both to give him a satisfactory answer and because she didn’t know if he would understand why she’d repeated the word in the first place.

He blinked.

She watched him do it, recalling so many other times when he’d done the same thing after she spoke. It was a habit of his, she’d noticed. But it could mean several things. Sometimes he blinked when she said something that surprised him. Sometimes he did it when he seemed unsettled or confused. Sometimes she wasn’t exactly sure what he was feeling, but it must be something unusual, based on the circumstances in which he did it. She wondered what it meant now. She looked down at her hands, realizing she’d been absently picking at her fingernails and cuticles again as she thought. They both had their habits, she supposed.

“I could recite something for you, if you’d like,” he offered.

She looked back to his face, raising an eyebrow. “Oh? Like what? A poem?”

Walter leaned back in his seat, turning to gaze at the fire. The chair was facing the fireplace, so he had to turn his head slightly to look at her. “Poems, novels, songs,” he said. “Anything.”

She laughed. “Something you’ve got memorized?”

He simply gazed into the fire, waiting.

“What all have you memorized?” she asked, suddenly curious. David had quoted several books and movies that she had recognized. Surely, Walter had found ones he liked, too.

“Everything,” he said.

She laughed. “No, I mean what are you familiar with? What do I have to choose from?”

“Everything.” He turned to look at her, one corner of his mouth curving upwards as he did. It was a very crooked smile, and one that Dani wasn’t sure she’d seen often before, if at all. She liked it.

“Well,” she said, shrugging. “You pick, then. Did you have something in mind when you offered?”

Walter looked away momentarily, thoughtful. “Are you fond of Shakespeare?” he asked.

“Fond?” Dani exhaled, smiling. “I’m afraid not. But familiar.” She squinted, trying to remember what she’d read of his work in her school years. “Sort of.”

Walter smiled that smile again. “Have you ever read _the Tempest_?” he asked.

Dani shook her head. It didn’t ring any bells. “Recite it for me?” she asked, suddenly hopeful.

“It will take more than one evening by the fire to get through all of it,” he warned, though he seemed far from bothered by this.

“Good,” she said, laying back and closing her eyes as he started. It never occurred to her to ask why he’d chosen to recite this particular work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may have noticed that I've started writing a companion story to go with this one. It's the same story but from Walter's point of view, so they can be read in any order, or even at the same time. I enjoy showing different sides of the same experience.; hopefully you'll enjoy reading them! As always, comments and suggestions are more than welcome. Thank you again for reading!


	4. What If

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may have noticed I started writing her name as Dani instead of Danny. For some reason that just feels like it fits her personality better, so I'll go back and change previous chapters accordingly. I wanted the notes at the beginning because this chapter does contain a brief discussion between Walter and Daniels, and some of her memories regarding David's attempted assault. So, trigger warning about that. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy! As always, feel free to tell me what you think or give me suggestions/improvement ideas. Thanks for reading!

Dani woke with a start, breathing out a heavy sigh when she realized it was Walter leaning over her and not the monster she’d seen in her dreams.

“Are you alright?” he asked, a thin line creasing the space between his brows.

“More dreams,” she said by way of explanation, sitting up. Her ribs were still somewhat sore and she was pushing herself and her body every day with all of the physical effort of aiding Walter’s cleaning, so her muscles were still getting into the swing of things.

He leaned back as she sat, and she noticed that his expression hadn’t changed.

“Are you alright?” she asked, almost joking.

He gave a nearly imperceptible shake of his head. “Something is wrong,” he said, looking away. His eyes unfocused and he seemed very preoccupied, almost like he was listening for something.

She leaned toward him automatically, unsure. Did he mean something was wrong with him? With her? Was one of those things in the temple? She had so many questions but a lump had formed in her throat and she was afraid to ask. The dread rose so thickly in her chest that the idea of speaking was frightening. The very sound of her voice might bring tragedy down upon them, it seemed.

Walter, apparently, didn’t share this feeling. “We must check on Stevens,” he said.

Dani blinked. “We?” she asked, surprised. Not that she minded accompanying Walter, of course. But he didn’t often include her in statements like this. It didn’t feel like an order, necessarily, but certainly as though he expected her to come along.

He blinked and returned his eyes to her face. “I would not like to leave you alone in a room without a door,” he started to reason with her.

The resurfacing of that same old argument almost made her roll her eyes, until she remembered why he was vehement about it in the first place. And why she was feeling far too jumpy and alert for someone who had just woken up after only a few hours of sleep. It was still the middle of the night. “Okay,” she said, nodding several times. “Um . . . Okay.” She pushed the covers away and stood up, wincing at the sudden pressure in her skull from moving so quickly. She held her eyes closed and waited for the sensation to pass. She squeaked and stepped back when she opened them, and her knees hit the edge of the bed, buckling and causing her to sit down again abruptly. “Walter,” she said, her voice hoarse from surprise. “What . . .?”

He leaned back immediately. His expression had been concerned and perplexed, but now it was almost embarrassed. But it wasn’t his expression that had caught her so off guard; he’d moved after she’d closed her eyes, probably to see if she was alright. But when she’d opened them he had been directly in front of her, with his face only inches from hers. “My apologies,” he said. “I did not know if a migraine had presented itself.”

“Migraine,” she repeated, feeling like her senses and body were alert and awake, but her mind wasn’t so much. “Oh. No. Just a head rush. I stood up too fast.” She made to do so again and he stepped back, watching her closely. This time she stood up a bit slower, and it seemed to help. “Stevens,” she said when she felt stable on her feet.

He nodded and they made their way through the temple and down to the colonist’s room. Walter paused before they entered the hallway, stopping at the door and holding up a hand to indicate that Dani should do the same.

When the silent waiting stretched beyond a minute – she _might_ have counted – Dani couldn’t take it anymore. “What’s wrong?” she whispered. “Why don’t we just go in?”

“Something is moving,” Walter said simply. He wasn’t quite whispering, but his voice was low. “It may simply be that Stevens has pulled through and regained consciousness. Or . . .” he trailed off, pausing to listen again.

Dani didn’t need to ask where he was going with the “or” part of that. _Or something else got inside._ She suppressed a shudder, looking up at him and waiting for a decision.

“It is safest if I enter first,” he said finally. “If it isn’t Stevens, it should not respond negatively to my presence.”

She recalled David’s fascination with his creatures and reminded herself again that this was Walter. _Walter_ , who had saved her life several times. _Walter_ , who had sworn to destroy the Engineer’s plague. _Walter_ , whom she had grown to know and care for. That last thought threw her into a moment of confusion and pondering, but she snapped back to reality when he slowly opened the door and peered inside.

The lantern-lit hall appeared as still and clean as normal. She let Walter lead by a few paces, following behind slowly and closing the door behind her. She kept her back to the closed door, ready to sprint back to it if need be and slam it shut behind her as soon as she was on the other side. As Walter had said, anything that wasn’t human here would not necessarily try to kill him. She, on the other hand, was a very prime target. She pushed the thought of potential escapes away, focusing on Walter’s steady movement as he approached the doorway that led to Stevens’ room. He stopped and peered inside intently for a few seconds before nodding to her. “Wait a moment,” he said, and then he moved into the room and out of her sight.

Another nervous lump had formed in her throat and she attempted to swallow it, but it wouldn’t budge. She tried to focus on something else and ignore the slight panic that crept in because she almost felt like she was choking, but she knew it was just her nerves. She stepped back, fully prepared to launch herself back towards the door, when Walter emerged from the room.

“All is well,” he said. “He is awake.” He motioned for her to approach and she did, following him into the room.

The man they knew only by his last name was lying on a makeshift bed, and Dani noted that his hands were moving feebly. They moved to stand next to the bed side by side, looking down at the colonist. He stared back up, bleary eyed and obviously very confused.

“Mr. Stevens,” Walter began, but the man ignored him, looking at Dani.

“You,” he said, his voice hoarse and raspy from disuse. “You’re one of the crew, aren’t you?”

She looked at Walter, not for answers but because she knew he had been pictured amongst the rest of the crew when the information packets about the Covenant were given to the colonists before they left. Perhaps this man knew that Walter was a synthetic. Perhaps he felt more comfortable talking to a female. Whatever the reason, she decided she could find out later. “I am,” she said, nodding once.

“Where are we? Where is the captain? Have we reached Origae-6?” He sounded as though he wanted to ask more or even sit up to chat, but his strength was obviously failing him.

“Captain Branson,” Dani said, hearing the waver in her voice and realizing this was the first time she’d mentioned Jake out loud since before the original expedition onto this planet, “and the rest of the crew were lost.” It sounded broken, so she took a deep breath and tried to control the sudden and very unexpected wave of emotions threatening to crash over her. “I took the title of captain after Oram . . .” She trailed off and took another deep breath. “We are not on Origae-6,” she said. “I’ll explain everything that I know to you.” She frowned apologetically. “There is so much that I don’t know. But I’ll try.” She looked to Walter again. “This is Walter, the crew’s synthetic companion.” It felt strange, saying those words. He was so much more than a non-human assistant. “He’s been caring for you since the crash.”

Stevens seemed alarmed, but too lacking in energy to act on it. He looked frantically around the room, turning his head and attempting to sit up. Walter moved to help him immediately, propping up the pillow and an extra blanket behind him to help him stay up. As soon as he was finished helping Stevens sit up, Walter looked at Dani. “He has been without any substantial food for some time,” he said. “If you’re comfortable here, I’ll go and get him some water, and some broth.”

She nodded. The door between the hallway and the temple beyond had obviously not been compromised, and that was most likely Walter’s reason for being willing to leave her here alone. Well, not alone. She turned and looked at the man reclining in front of her. Both of them had so many questions, she knew. Walter left and she paused, trying to figure out where to start. “Before I tell you how we got here,” she said, “would you mind telling me your name?” She motioned to the wristband that Walter had removed and set near the bed. A very dark burn showed where it had been scorched, leaving only his last name legible.

The man seemed to brighten when he recognized his own name. Something familiar in this madness, probably. “Irwin,” he said. He slowly extended a shaky hand towards her, and she took it gently but firmly. “Irwin Stevens,” he recited. “My wife and I decided to make the journey after years of talking about it.”

Dani looked down, thinking of the years she’d spent with Jake, talking about a log cabin by a lake. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Stevens. I guess my official title is Captain Daniels, but that doesn’t really matter here. You can call me Dani.”

He nodded, releasing her hand. He was obviously searching her face for answers every time she spoke. “Irwin,” he said again. “Call me Irwin.”

She nodded, smiling small. “Okay. Well, um, a lot has happened since we all boarded the Covenant,” she said. She was still not sure where to start, how to get into it all. The beginning, before they’d even left? No. When the emergency had brought them all out of stasis? That was the beginning of this horrible experience, the real beginning. That was when it had all shifted from a routine colonization mission to something akin to the script of a horror film. “We were still 9 years away from Origae-6 when a neutrino blast hit the ship unexpectedly and detached a part of our charging sails. This triggered a state of emergency on the ship, and the crew were all very abruptly and unexpectedly brought out of cryo.” She took a deep breath, looking at him to make sure he was listening. She was staring at the wall as she spoke, not because she was unwilling to maintain eye contact but because she was remembering everything. She hadn’t recalled it all so clearly since right after it had all happened.

“The rest of the crew made it out of their stasis pods, but Captain Branson’s malfunctioned . . . . and he was killed.” She swallowed and took another deep breath. God, she was doing a lot of slow breathing and pausing right now. But she needed it to stay focused and stable, and to keep that still-looming wave of emotion from growing into a tsunami. “We also lost several colonists at that time,” she said.

“M- my wife,” Stevens said immediately, suddenly concerned. “Emma. Her name is Emma Stevens. Was she . . .” He seemed unable to finish the question.

Dani shook her head, trying to recall the names of the colonists who had perished on the Covenant back then. So much else had happened to take up her attention, and she’d been bereft because of Jake’s sudden departure from her life. She didn’t remember a single name from those few colonists. “I don’t know,” she said finally, ashamed that she didn’t. “Perhaps Walter might,” she said finally, looking up into Irwin’s face. He appeared stricken, and she recognized the sudden, desperate look in his eyes as the same one she’d seen in the mirror after Jake’s death. She didn’t know how to explain that everyone else was dead without telling the rest of the story first, though, so she started talking again.

She told him about fixing the sails, and the rogue transmission that Tennessee’s gear had intercepted. Irwin smiled when she mentioned the song that Tennessee had recognized, but she nearly cried. She explained Oram’s decision to explore this new planet instead of staying on track and continuing to Origae-6, as well as her discomfort with the idea. She didn’t detail anything if she didn’t have to, recounting the flight that the mixed team of crew and security had experienced down to the planet’s surface, still chasing that transmission. She told him about the ship they’d found, and the evidence that Doctor Elizabeth Shaw was the source of the music lost in space.

Irwin recognized the name and asked several questions, but then sat quietly and allowed her to continue. Then came the tougher parts of the story, the ones that made her choke up even more than talking about Jake had. Maybe it was because they were so horrendous and gory and unexpected. Maybe it was because she was still terrified, and the idea of imparting such a horrible feeling on someone else who wasn’t already feeling it was sickening. She felt as though she was taking something precious from him as she told about the members of the crew and the security team getting sick and the events that followed shortly after. She was looking at him occasionally now, watching his expression turn more and more confused and disgusted. His eyes were afraid.

She told him about David’s dramatic entrance and how the remaining survivors had followed him to his supposed safe place. The actual events that transpired there were unclear to her in some ways, because she knew only of her own experience and what she’d been told, but she explained to the best of her ability and shared what she knew.

“But the colonists,” Irwin interjected at one point, “They were . . . safe. They were not in this place, removed from this situation.”

Dani nodded, hating that she had to go on and give him the news. His wife must have perished, either in the initial loss after the blast, or in the crash itself. Hell, she may have been the woman that Walter had tended as well as Stevens, for so long. Either way, there were no other survivors. No other humans were on this planet, of that she was sure. Even if there were other cities of Engineers or similar creatures, she and the man in front of her were the only humans in this place. “They were,” she conceded. She talked about Tennessee’s rescue, excluding the details of David’s assault on her and simply disclosing that Walter had saved her when the other synthetic became violent. She recalled her use of the crane to destroy the creature that had made it onboard the transport sled, mentioning that they had returned safely to the Covenant after all.

Irwin seemed brimming with more questions, but he waited patiently for her to go on. They were here, in this strange stone place. Surely that was enough of a hint for him to understand that her story wasn’t finished.

“We thought we were safe,” she said, “But Lope had one _in him_ that we didn’t know about. It killed him and the only two members of the crew beside Tennessee and myself, but we trapped it in the terraforming bay and shot it out into space.” She paused, trying to decide how to reveal David’s treachery. She explained that as best she could, noting that Irwin had started looking at the doorway behind her from time to time with a distrustful look on his face.

“Are you sure this android is the right one?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said firmly. “I know he is.”

“And the other one? I thought you said this one was left here. How did it find you? How do you know it’s the good one?”

Dani tried not to take offense at the way Irwin was referring to Walter, so she let it pass. Then she moved on to talking about waking up here, just down the hall. She explained how much Walter had done for both of them until now, and how much he was still doing. She told him everything she knew about the crash from what Walter had described, promising him that David was taken care of. Walter had said so. He would never lie to her. _It wasn’t in his programming_ , he would say. But more than that, Dani knew he just wouldn’t. It was part of who he was. Like so many other parts of him that were so human sometimes.

Irwin was very silent after she explained the crash. Dani had mentioned the other surviving colonists earlier, and the man demanded to know what the woman had looked like. Dani had visited her a few times, but she knew Walter’s memory and time spent with the nameless female would be much more reliable than her own fuzzy recollections.

“I think she had red hair,” she said finally. “Dark red, almost brown.”

This seemed to upset Irwin greatly. “And her eyes?” he asked.

Dani shook her head. She’d spent time with the woman, but never pried her eyes open. “They were closed,” she said. “She was unconscious. Maybe Walter knows.” He’d probably opened them at some point to see her pupils and gauge her response to light.

Irwin seemed on the brink of an emotional breakdown, and Dani couldn’t blame him. Everything had just been torn from him, his dreams of a new life on a new planet, his wife, his safety, all of it.

Walter returned shortly and took measure of the situation as soon as he walked in. He set the food down next to Irwin’s bed.

“His name is Irwin,” Dani offered, trying to break the sudden, heavy silence that had fallen over them.

The man turned to Walter abruptly, sizing him up. “What color were her eyes?” he asked.

Walter seemed confused by the question, and since he hadn’t been present for the conversation that prompted it, he turned to look at Dani inquisitively.

“He believes the female colonist you cared for may have been his wife, Emma,” she said quietly. “I told him I thought she’d had dark red hair.”

Walter looked back to Irwin. “Blue,” he said simply.

Irwin sucked in his breath, clenching and unclenching his hands. “Did she have a m- a mole on her left cheek?”

Dani looked to Walter. This question was far too specific for her to be able to accurately answer. She hadn’t studied the woman’s face. Walter would remember such a mark simply because his recollections of his experiences always seemed so precise. Dani hoped he would, if only to answer Irwin’s question once and for all. Had it been his wife in the same room as him all this time?

“Yes,” Walter said, without much pause. “She was badly injured after the crash, but had a large, preexisting scar across her right hip.”

Irwin seemed distraught, but then came back to himself suddenly. Rage filled his face. “How do you know what my wife’s hip looks like?” he bellowed. The noise was obviously intended to be much louder, though it came out hollow and weak. He didn’t have the energy to be fighting, verbally or otherwise.

Walter did not seem bothered or confused by the question. “I cleaned her,” he said plainly. “I retrieved her from the wreckage, brought her here, cleaned her and tended her wounds, and then continued to do so, as she remained unconscious for multiple weeks before passing. It was necessary to ensure-” he was cut off by a garbled noise emanating from Irwin’s throat.

His face was red, a vein in the center of his forehead was bulging, and he was clenching and unclenching his fists again. “I can’t believe-” he started, but Dani stopped him right there.

“Walter did everything he could,” she said, suddenly feeling incredibly protective of the synthetic standing beside her. “I was certainly in no shape to be taking care of anyone. I was a patient as much as you or Emma.” When this didn’t seem to change his opinion of Walter, she took it a step further. “Would you prefer it if he’d simply left her out there?” she asked sharply. Perhaps it was a low blow to deal to a man who had just found out about the loss of his spouse. Perhaps she should feel bad. She didn’t.

“Leave me!” Irwin shouted at them then.

Dani nodded, looking at Walter. He hadn’t responded to the man’s outburst. Truly, he almost seemed perplexed by it. “Walter,” she said. He didn’t move. She reached out, gently taking his arm at the elbow, careful not to touch him too close to his stump wrist. She didn’t know if it would hurt him if she touched it. She tugged gently but insistently, but he responded to her as soon as she touched him, and followed her out of the room. On the way out she noted that he’d taken the same makeshift toilet he’d had for her and placed it in the room, as well.

 

They made it back up to the main room, and on their way she tried to console him. “Don’t take it personally,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll come around.”

Walter seemed unbothered. “He is in a state of shock,” he said calmly. “It is hardly unusual for outbursts such as the one we just witnessed to occur. He has lost much, and very suddenly.”

Dani nodded, thinking momentarily of her own losses. “I don’t know why he distrusts you so much,” she said at length. “I talked briefly about David and explained the role he played, but I never mentioned you in a way that could be construed negatively.” She shook her head, trying to understand Irwin’s behavior and recall whether she had said something about Walter that had painted him in a bad light. She was sure she hadn’t.  

“Don’t stress yourself over it,” Walter said, and suddenly it sounded like _he_ was the one consoling _her_. “Not all humans are as accepting and willing to deal with synthetics as you are. That’s the way it’s always been. Perhaps Mr. Stevens has had a bad experience with a synthetic in the past. You saw what eccentricities David’s model was capable of.”

Dani thought this through as they walked, eventually agreeing. The thought of David always chilled her. It wasn’t Walter’s fault, and she knew he hadn’t brought it up to cause her discomfort, but she shook the thought away physically, almost like a shudder.

Walter looked at her for a moment, tilting his head questioningly.

“ _David_ ,” was all she said.

He nodded. They stopped in the main room, where Walter had lit several of the braziers to light the place. “You told him everything?” he asked.

Dani nodded. “Mostly,” she admitted after a span of silence. He was watching her, waiting for her to go on, so she did. “I didn’t really get into _all_ of what David did. Just what was necessary for my explanation of everything else.”

Walter seemed thoughtful. He watched her even after she spoke, and she got the feeling he was _watching_ and not just _looking_ at her by the intensity in his face. “You mean David’s assault on you in his library.” It wasn’t a question.

The straightforwardness of it caught her off guard, and a tiny part of her wanted to feel offended that he was so blunt. She reminded herself that no matter how human Walter could be sometimes, he was still a synthetic. Sometimes tact with certain subjects didn’t exactly come naturally to him. “Yeah,” she said eventually, realizing she’d been lost in thought and hadn’t answered. “That.” She looked away and down, not to escape his gaze so much as to clear her field of vision from any distractions. It was an automatic thing, a habit she had when she withdrew into herself and recalled something or thought deeply. She was only vaguely aware that she did it.

She was thinking through it all, recalling David’s words and actions. The smoothness of his hands was unsettling, knowing how long he’d been marooned here and what that environment would have done to a human’s hands due to the necessary work to survive. His hair was cut short, styled almost like Walter’s. David had looked like Walter in basic appearance, but his clothes were wrong and so was his face. Well, perhaps it wasn’t his _face_ , per say. They had the same face, after all. But something in his expression, in the way he moved, was very distinct and different than Walter. When Walter walked, Dani didn’t feel like she was being hunted. When David walked, she recalled noting the predatory gait and the almost smug confidence in his face. The sneer he gave her as he pushed her around like a toy was forever etched into Dani’s brain, and she hated it.

“I am truly sorry that I was unable to get there sooner,” Walter said genuinely.

She looked up suddenly, startled out of her reverie. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said. “You were trying to keep him from leaving this place because you knew what he’d do with the colonists. With us.” She thought of David’s lips pressed against hers and visibly shuddered. They were not cold in temperature, but in intent. They’d been hard, and the way he’d kissed her had been forceful in the worst way. She blinked several times, trying to clear the memory away. It was replaced by the recollection of the sensation of David’s weight being lifted from her abruptly. She remembered a hand appearing on David’s shoulder, remembered thinking _Walter!_ And watching David fly across the room. She remembered the way Walter had sounded when he told her to leave. It was the only time he had ever yelled at her or given her an order.

When she refocused, she noted that Walter was no longer looking at her. He seemed deeply troubled, but the hints of such feelings vanished from his expression when he realized she was looking. “I failed you,” he said finally, and it sounded heavy and sad.

“You gave up so much to make sure I was okay,” Dani pointed out, momentarily forgetting David in the face of Walter’s apparent misery. The nasty, sick feeling was still hanging heavily and uncomfortably in her stomach, but the reason for it was gone from her for now. She looked pointedly at his arm, indicating his missing hand. “I never would have asked you to do that for me, if I’d known. You never owed me anything, Walter.”

“It is my duty,” he said firmly. “And it _was_ my duty. And I was not there when you needed me, with David. And I was overpowered and it was he who boarded the transport sled and then the Covenant . . . And-”

“Walter,” she interrupted. A new thought had occurred to her. “Do you think I’m mad at you? Do you think you did something wrong? You did everything you could. You have saved me so many times. You came in and stopped him and got me out of there, remember? You’ve never disappointed me, or anyone else in the crew. You have done so much more than you ever had to, especially for me.”

He seemed slightly less aggravated with himself, but still conflicted. “But had I been the one to board the transport sled . . .” he trailed off, letting the possibilities hang in the air.

“Lope had one in him,” Dani pointed out, grimacing at the mention of it. “We all could still have died.”

“But the Covenant would not have crashed,” Walter said, frowning.

“Maybe,” Dani pointed out. “I was in stasis and you were here. Only David knows why it crashed. Besides, what’s with this ‘if’ bullshit? That never does anything good for anyone. If only you’d been there. If only we hadn’t visited this damn place to begin with. If only the neutrino blast hadn’t even hit us.” She got quiet at the end, thinking of Jake. “It doesn’t help to ask ‘what if’,” she said finally. “All we can do is make the best out of what we have now, in the present. If you have to ask something like that, then ask about the future. At least we can change that.” All of that was admittedly a little deeper than she’d intended for it to be, but whatever. Walter seemed to get her point.

“What if Mr. Stevens never comes around?” he asked. It was rhetorical and unemotional, obviously just a genuine question. Walter didn’t sound like he cared too much one way or another, just that he was asking, imagining what the future would be like, depending on Irwin’s reaction to him later.

“I’ll try to talk some sense into him,” Dani promised.

Walter only nodded.

 

“Hey, Walter?” she said after a few minutes. She had been looking at the flames in one of the braziers, and she’d noticed her eyelids getting heavier and heavier with the passing seconds. They’d been up for over an hour now, and her bed – was it technically Walter’s? David’s? She didn’t know – was calling to her.

“Hmm?” he hummed, looking up and waiting.

“ _What if_ we get some sleep?”

He tilted his head to the side, but she didn’t notice that long enough for it to click in her brain that she’d said something unusual. He nodded then, rising to his feet. She was tired enough that she was blinking every few seconds, so he gently took her arm to guide her. They made it to the room and she sank down into bed, looking up at him blearily. “You’re a good person, Walter,” she said quietly. “I’ll make sure he knows that.”

“What if he still doesn’t care?” Walter asked softly, pulling the blankets up over her and smoothing them where they were creased.

She made a face and shook her head lightly, closing her eyes and fighting sleep. “It won’t matter,” she said, so faintly she barely heard herself. “You’re important to me. And that’s . . . all . . .” She fought it for a moment longer, getting out a last few words before it took her. “That’s all that’s important to me.”


	5. Sick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the whole month between updates! Like I said, I type for a living so my hands aren't always up to a bunch of writing, and sometimes it's so hard to find my motivation to write on weekends when I'm actually free. I will definitely continue to update and will try to update more frequently. Thanks for sticking with me either way! The plot thickens ahead! As always, comments/suggestions and all that are very appreciated. I'm grateful that even one person is reading what I write, and it's so cool to know there are a few of you.

It rained often, but never dropped too far below freezing. Walter’s abilities extended to understanding the exact temperature of his surroundings, and the time of day. Of course, time on this planet was something completely separate than time on earth, even if they were similar. But Walter knew exactly what day it was and though he never physically kept track and didn’t regularly announce it, he would willingly spout off the exact date and time whenever Dani asked. She had asked him the night before last just how long they had been here. 

“Eight months,” he’d replied immediately, expression smooth. He seemed neither perturbed nor pleased, tilting his head to look at her as he answered. 

“Eight months.” The words sounded foreign.  Too short to express everything that had happened in two words but too long to remember some finer details of exactly what life had been like before they arrived. 

“Of course, we don’t know during which season we arrived, and whether this planet’s previous inhabitants had laid out months or a similar timescale. Without known, named months to count days in groups of 30 or 31, eight months is not an exact length of time. I have yet to understand the Engineer’s method of dating their written and sculpted works, but once I crack the code it would seem fitting to use their years – if that is how they measure a full rotation around their central star – to mark the time that has passed, instead of our own.” In the past, he’d alluded to the idea that human concept of time on Earth had potentially been passed down from the engineers’ scales of measurement, or at least loosely based on them. 

Dani felt her eyebrows go up and knit together slightly, more amused by Walter’s random offerings of knowledge and eloquent observation than anything else. “How old do you think they are?”

He’d turned to regard the room around them, leaning back some to look up at the intricately carved, pillar-supported ceiling. “The engineers themselves, hard to say. One civilization on earth morphed into another. No doubt the beings that lived here developed cultures and societies in the same way.” He paused, still admiring the structure above their heads. “Ancient,” he surmised eventually. “And if this is not the world which birthed them, older still.” 

Such a vast measure of time was beyond Dani’s ability to truly grasp or even think about too deeply. It had been the same when she learned of how old Earth was, or even humans themselves. “And Dr. Shaw believed that they created us.” 

“She did.” 

Dani breathed out in a short burst through her nsoe, not quite a snort or a sigh, thoughtful. 

“And then you created me.” 

She turned to look at him abruptly, surprised by his choice of words. 

“And then they created a plague,” Walter added after some time, obviously musing over it just as much as she was. It seemed to hurt his brain less it did hers, she noted. 

“And then David perfected it.” 

Then it was Walter’s turn to grunt softly, probably not quite willing to agree with her use of the word  _perfected_. 

_The perfect organism._  She shivered and shook the thought away, refocusing on the thick window in front of her. It appeared to be made of a slightly tinted glass. The side she stood on had a thin film of dusk and grime gathering in the corners of the frame and even on the surface of the glass itself, while the outside was pelted with rain. The drops came so fast that the rhythmic sound of single raindrops had become a thunderous noise on the roof, as if they were now positioned beneath a waterfall. Water ran down the window as if someone stood beyond it with a high powered hose. 

“How long will the storm last?” 

She turned, studying the man across the room. He was seated in a chair, slumped forward over his own knees as he pulled on a pair of shoes. Irwin still moved with a hint of shakiness in his limbs and now and then his expression revealed that he was still in some amount of pain from time to time. The burns on his arm where his name bracelet had been scorched had healed long before he’d regained consciousness, and the crash itself had jarred him but not truly harmed him. Only scars physically marked what he’d been through. Any struggle he experienced with movement now was born of his extended time immobile and undernourished. Walter had done everything he could, of course, even using IV drips to maintain Irwin’s health while he was comatose. But the lack of movement and use had led to muscular entropy, and there was only so much the medical supplies salvaged from the Covenant could do. 

“Weeks, months,” Dani heard herself say. She thought of David’s description of the storms using the very same words and made a face, still shaken by their last few encounters but not quite so afraid anymore. 

Irwin grumbled something under his breath, but nodded to her gratefully for her answer. “What’s the place like when it’s not raining?” he asked. His recovery had been slow all around, with his mental state still lagging behind the progress of the rest of him. But he’d been demanding to go outside since he could leave his bed. 

“Pretty.” She thought of the massive trees and the wheat fields, and the lake. The courtyard still gave her nightmares at times, but she knew Walter had done much as far as removing the twisted, blackened bodies that used to cover it. “The city is large, but the wilderness outside …" She paused, thinking again of the trees. Plenty of wood to build a cabin by the lake. “The trees are huge. There are mountains everywhere, at least on this part of the planet. We didn’t exactly get the chance to explore any other biomes or look for oceans.” 

“I prefer the city.” His voice was gruff, but then it softened. He looked at Dani, and a tiny, sad smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. “But Emma loved trees. Hiking, camping, you name it. The woman dragged me across the world a few times before we even got on that damned ship. Our next great adventure, she said. The nap of a lifetime and then the opportunity of a lifetime with building our own neighborhood and growing our own garden.” His voice wavered near the end, and he trailed off into silence. 

Dani felt her own loss very keenly still, though it came and went. “Some days you feel numb to it and some days it’s like it just happened,” she said. 

He seemed to understand. “We were married for twenty-three years,” he said at length, reaching up to conspicuously scratch at his cheekbone and maybe wipe away a tear before it revealed itself to Dani. 

“Wow,” was all she could say to that. From their initial meeting to his death, she had known Jake for less than ten. Small tears welled up in her eyes and threatened to spill over but didn’t, a quiet acknowledgement of his pain and hers. Several minutes passed in silent reflection, something easy to achieve with the overpowering sound of the rain. “Everyone’s adventure got fucked.” It wasn’t quite devoid of humor, and both of them breathed a short laugh when she said it. Irwin’s nightmare had begun much more recently. Or his awareness of it, anyway; scars had formed over Dani’s emotional wounds, where his were still in their first stages of healing. 

Abruptly, Irwin changed the subject. They had talked about most everything extensively by now, visiting David’s study and going over lingering questions and misunderstandings. Neither of them had satisfactory answers regarding David’s creatures, but the only subject Irwin still seemed unable to accept was the presence of the crew’s only remaining synthetic companion. “Why do you trust him?” 

Dani looked back to the window, feeling the urge to roll her eyes and to react loudly at the same time. She managed to do neither, smiling small instead. This was a question he had asked her so many times since he woke up.  _Why do you trust him? Why do you trust him?_ Why  _do you trust him?_

 “Because I have innocent until proven guilty operating standards,” she started, all too familiar with the question itself and with the line of reasoning she would use to answer it. “And because he has given me every reason to. He’s saved my life plenty of times. I’ve never had a reason not to trust him.” She paused. Usually this was where her rebuttal ended, and they fell quiet for some time, or Irwin pressed the subject further. Today she considered all that Walter had done for her – for both her and Irwin – and chose to continue instead of waiting for his response. “The crew was entirely made up of couples. When Jake died he was the only crew member we lost. I would never, ever wish that on anyone else, but it was hard to be around people who didn’t understand. Walter was different. He knew something about being alone. He came with me and was there when no one else was, just because I asked him to be. He’s never asked for anything in return, but he’s always been there when I needed him.” 

It felt weird to say it out loud, like she was admitting something she shouldn’t.  But it was a very logical argument to have against Irwin’s obvious, deeply held problems with synthetics and with Walter in particular. And she felt confident enough saying it, because all of it was true.  

Irwin was looking at her the way he always did when she answered him the way she always did. Now there was more to her answer, of course, but the basis of her argument had never changed. “Grief can do strange things to people and their perceptions of things,” he said quietly. There was no edge in his voice, but the bite behind his words was obvious enough. He wasn’t referring to himself.

She had glanced back to the window but now jerked around to look at him again, mouth open in disbelief. He had never said anything so pointed and obviously intended to jab at her specifically before. Walter was always the subject of his verbal assaults. She closed her mouth, the tears that had lingered in her eyes earlier now gone entirely. “I have had time to compartmentalize and deal with my grief,” she said, feeling nearly as affronted as she did whenever Irwin insulted Walter behind his back. Nearly. She stood up suddenly, reaching for the nail that hung around her neck and subconsciously turning it over and over between her fingers. “You might want to put some energy into doing the same.” 

She stared at him for a second longer to consider what else she might say, but then she huffed an angry laugh and turned to leave the room, shaking her head as she went. Previous to this entire ordeal, she might have allowed her feet to fall heavier against the floor to make more of a statement. But not today. She had subconsciously learned to move as quietly as she could, or at least without making unnecessary noise. Body language alone was plenty to give her away, though, because Walter appeared in a doorway not long after she began her silent march down the hall, raising his eyebrows in the slightest act of inquisitive interest. 

“You’re upset,” he pointed out, falling easily into step beside her when she didn’t stop to speak with him and just kept right on walking. He seemed to consider this very briefly and then asked, “Would you prefer to be alone?” Obviously taking her unhalted movement to mean she didn’t want to socialize. 

“Yes,” she said, to his initial observation, and then, “No,” to the question itself. 

Walter’s steps didn’t falter, but his expression did. She was looking ahead at where they were walking, but she noticed it even from the corner of her eye. He opened his mouth, probably to ask what exactly she would like, but she clarified before he could. 

“Yes, I’m upset. No, I don’t want to be alone.” 

This satisfied him, but only for a few seconds. “Where are we headed at such a quick pace?” 

She took a deep breath, held it in for a count of three, and then breathed out slowly. “I’m taking a bath,” she said simply, and swerved into a hallway, mindful of the maze of directions and multiple routes the temple offered to reach a single destination. 

Walter followed without missing a beat, though she sensed hesitation from him once again. 

“I don’t want to be alone,” she reiterated, “But if you have someplace else to be-” 

“No,” he said immediately. 

She smirked, knowing he probably didn’t even realize how forward that sounded. She was glad to have his company, and after so many months of bathing with him around, she didn’t think twice about it. They arrived in the lower levels and Walter took his usual seat against the wall, gazing out into the dimly lit rest of the room while she undressed.  _Always the gentleman_ , she thought. 

But everything on her mind was whisked away entirely as she lowered herself into the water. She could feel the usual tingles throughout her feet and legs and then up into her midsection as the hot water touched her skin, but there was another sensation accompanying them that caught her attention. As the water rose up over her torso and stopped even with her shoulders, the heat became too much. She suddenly felt like she might be about to pass out. “Walter,” she murmured in alarm, lifting one arm and setting it on the side of the pool where she could touch the cold stone floor. She turned and leaned her head on her arm, weakly grasping at the cool floor and wishing away the sudden pressure in her head. 

The android was beside her immediately, kneeling near her head. He touched her wrist, obviously concerned. “Your temperature has risen considerably above what I believe to be normal.” 

“No shit.” The words were not hard or biting at all, just raspy. And accompanied by a pained laugh. “Sometimes I get a head rush or feel a little too warm when I first get in the water, but this is something else.” She opened her left eye as her right one was pressed into her arm, and watched him dip his fingers in the water after taking them from her wrist. 

“The water temperature does not appear to have changed,” he said. 

She couldn’t see his face because of the way she was slumped over the side of the pool, and when he withdrew his hand she couldn’t see any of him. 

“With respect to your desire to bathe, might I suggest postponing the activity until later?” he asked. But already, she felt his hands – well,  _hand_  on one side, stump arm on the other – finding their place under her armpits and gently lifting her out of the water. “Maybe if you cool off for a time-”

“I think it might be something else," she cut in, sorry to interrupt but also keen to give Walter all of the information she had to offer so that he could make an informed guess of what might be wrong. “I’ve been having headaches occasionally for a few days now. And I’ve felt warm. Sick to my stomach sometimes. But not all the time. It comes in waves and doesn’t last long.” She could practically feel him frowning behind her as he set her down on the edge of the pool with her legs still in the water. 

“Can you sit?" He asked. “I’ll just grab you a towel for the walk back.” 

“I don’t know,” she said. Dani was somewhat unwilling to admit it, but the slight headache had suddenly turned into a pounding sensation demanding of her attention, and her ability to sit up straight or even just keep her eyes open without frequently blinking seemed impaired. 

Walter said nothing, accepting this silently and moving to lift her again. He walked her carefully to the bench near the wall, setting her down next to the towels he kept so neatly stacked there. She managed to move her legs somewhat and help herself along, but most of her weight was carried by Walter, who walked beside her with his good arm strung under both of hers. 

“Thank you,” she managed, but it was quiet. “My head is killing me.” 

“How long have these side effects been presenting themselves?” he asked. He sounded slightly irked that she hadn't thought to mention them to him before, but not like he blamed her for it. Walter knew she valued her privacy when it came to certain things, and she didn’t like to be babied or fussed over if she thought whatever ailed her was minor and would soon pass. 

She shook her head, immediately regretting the action because even the slow movement seemed to jar her brain and make the throbbing worse. “A few days maybe? I figured it was just a bug. Or maybe I was dehydrated.” 

“Just a bug.” Walter didn’t tsk at her, but she could hear the,  _We_ _are on an alien planet._ Just a bug _could kill you. We don’t know enough about the viruses and diseases that could be present here_ , in those three simple words. 

“I’m sorry for not mentioning it sooner. I thought it was nothing. It felt like nothing until today.” 

While they talked, he’d been busy wrapping her in towels and drying her extremities. He chose to gently stand her up to wrap a towel around her torso and waist rather than drying them himself, and then he put his arm under hers again. “I’ll get you into bed and then get some hot broth and water into you. Your system-”

“No, not hot.” Again, she didn’t mean to interrupt. “I feel like I’m burning up all of a sudden. Cold or lukewarm is fine. Not hot.” 

But she’d changed her mind by the time they reached her room.  _Their room_? She wasn’t sure. Walter was there with her almost every night, seated dutifully in his chair at her bedside in case the worst happened and one of David’s creatures managed to enter the temple. She had mentioned that Stevens also lived in a room with no real door, but Walter had dismissed this with a mention of just how little the man liked him. Dani couldn’t argue. She doubted Irwin would want a synthetic watching over him while he slept, regardless of what horrors might come around instead of Walter. 

Maybe it was the chilled air in the complex on her wet skin and hair, or maybe it was whatever illness had presented itself so abruptly, but by the time Walter helped her into bed, she was begging him to light a fire and build it up large and hot, and cover her in extra blankets. He did so immediately, promising to return with hot broth now that she suddenly felt so cold. 

She curled her knees against her chest and shivered as she waited for him to come back. Her hair wasn’t soaked through as she hadn’t even had the chance to dunk her head under the water, but as she’d sunk low enough to get her shoulders and neck wet, the cold, wet ends touched her cheeks and the back of her neck. They sent chills that felt like cold razors down her spine. She hadn’t trimmed her hair since the crash, but now noticed that her bangs were getting in her eyes. Not to mention the cold ends touching her skin and making her feel even colder and more uncomfortable than she already was. When Walter got back she thanked him for the broth and then asked him to cut her hair before she even started sipping it. 

He peered at her closely, but he must have figured out why she asked because he just nodded. “Easier to take care of when it’s short,” he said simply, and left to find the pair of sheers David had kept in his study. 

That wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind, but she supposed it fell in the list of reasons to chop off what little had grown in the last eight months. More than half of a year. Dani clutched the bowl of broth to her chest to soak up the warmth and sipped at it slowly, considering other eight month periods in her life and the number of things they had contained. This had to be the most eventful one, even if getting engaged to Jake and climbing Mount Everest had happened in a span of eight months. That felt like a lifetime ago.

Her head wasn’t feeling quite so bad, but now her temperature was obviously thrown off. A fever, perhaps. She felt cold and shook badly for a time, and then sweated profusely and shoved off all of the covers in spite of being naked beneath them. 

Walter returned and raised his eyebrows when he walked in, immediately apologizing. 

She rolled her eyes. “It’s my fault. I should have given you a warning. Can I have a tank top and shorts?” 

“Of course.” He bent to retrieve the clothing for her, keeping his eyes steadfastly glued to her face whenever he did look her way. 

Again, she rolled her eyes. “I think I have a fever,” she said, changing the subject. 

“That would be my first guess,” Walter agreed. He set the sheers on the desk near his chair and studied her face as he stepped closer to hand her what she’d asked for.

Dani swallowed the suddenly-there lump in her throat and took the clothes from him with shaky hands. “Do you think I’m . . . infected?” She thought of Oram’s body when she found it, with a hole torn through his chest because one of those  _things_  had burst out of it. She shuddered. 

“That seems unlikely," he offered, but he didn’t tell her it was impossible. He couldn’t, of course. There were too many unknowns, too many variables in their situation. Dani hadn’t left the temple at all besides occasional visits to the roof with Walter, and he had scoured that entire area to be sure it was free of any alien creatures or their damned infestation of pods. Still, there was a chance . . . 

“But not impossible,” she finished for him, biting both of her lips at once. “Shit.” 

Walter helped her into her clothes and then sat down beside her. She expected him to take a seat at his usual chair, but he chose the edge of the bed next to her hip and turned to face her, clearly taking stock of her appearance and physical signs or distress. “You look pale,” he said after a few moments, “but not like any of the crew who were infected when it got bad. I don’t know their exact symptoms because I never discussed with them, but it seemed to progress quickly. If you are infected, I suspect we’ll know sooner than later.”

Dani choked out a short, unamused laugh. “Thanks, Walter. Always keeping it real.” Truly, she was grateful that he didn’t mince words on the matter, but  _god_. Sooner than later. Right. 

He lifted his shoulders in a half shrug, and the action alone prompted a genuine smile from her. “I will not leave your side,” he promised.

Then Irwin’s presence occurred to her. “You have to take me out of the temple,” she said suddenly, thinking feverishly of the other human in Walter’s care and deciding that she would not force him to die a terrible death. “It’s not safe for Irwin if-”

“No. Infected or not, it’s not safe for you beyond these walls.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but Walter didn’t let her get that far.

“If you aren’t infected, the dangers are even higher. I won’t risk that.” He would obviously not be swayed, and she was in no position to fight him on it, physically or otherwise. 

“Downstairs, then. Irwin doesn’t live down there anymore and there’s a heavy door to stop anything from getting in or out without help. Please, Walter. If I am incubating one of those fuckers we can’t let it get to Stevens.” She was in too much discomfort to put all of her effort into making a pleading face, but she knew he got the message. 

He considered this, sighing after some time. That seemed grudging, but positive. “I’ll take all of the things you’ll need to be comfortable and-”

“No. You can’t leave my side, remember?” She stared into his eyes, trying to be as firm and convincing as possible. “Not while I’m in a place without a door. Something could get in. Something could get out. If there is one in me, we don’t know when it might decide to  _come out_. I’ll go down there with you right away. You can leave me alone once I’m behind that door.” 

Walter had obvious qualms with this, but he didn’t argue. He looked pained and he was obviously exerting effort to keep from telling her he wanted her comfortable and didn’t want to leave her on a naked stone bed in an empty room, but he managed. “Then let’s not waste any more time,” he said simply. And they went. 

She huddled in the bed under a number of blankets, shivering again. The sweat that had poured out of her moments before now felt like it would be her demise and freeze her solid. There was no true fireplace in this room and Walter had substituted a portable heating console from the Covenant’s wreckage, but even directly next to the bed, she didn’t feel like it helped. She wanted to get out of this cold, dark room, and she wanted to feel better. But she heard shouting, so more than anything she wanted to run upstairs and see what the hell was going on. It was too far away to make out who exactly was doing all the yelling, but she doubted it was Walter. She had heard him raise his voice only once before, and that was when he told her to leave after he’d  _removed_  David from on top of her. The synthetic didn’t often get riled enough to scream at people, but then again Irwin and Walter seemed to genuinely push every single one of each others’ buttons. More like it was Walter pushing Irwin’s buttons simply by existing, and Irwin still being treated with remarkable patience and compassion from Walter. But even so . . .

The shouting continued at sporadic moments, obviously fueled by outbursts lasting anywhere from a single word to a long rant, and then with pauses in between. For breath, it sounded like. Walter didn’t need to breathe and only really paused when he was thinking or for conversational effect. She was confident that it wasn’t him doing the yelling. “Stevens,” she muttered, thinking back to her conversation with him earlier. Maybe he was just letting all of his disapproval and mistrust loose on Walter today. Maybe something else had gone wrong. 

She shoved the blankets off again, still shaking all over but now feeling like she’d been thrown directly into the sun. Maybe that was an overstatement, but she was miserable. And the headache was back even though she’d been sipping water and lying down like she was supposed to. She turned to face the heating unit, wistfully thinking of healthier days as she tugged the covers back up over her feet and lower legs. Now she felt too hot to be under the blankets entirely but too cold to be completely uncovered. Joy. 

Walter showed up eventually without even a hair out of place, further supporting her belief that Irwin had been the one raising his voice before. Of course, Walter rarely had a hair out of place no matter what he was doing, so perhaps it didn’t lend anything to her (somewhat biased) guess at all.

“Did World War IV break out while you were up there?” she joked, but his expression remained carefully neutral. 

“Hardly. Mr. Stevens and I had a little disagreement. The issue has since been resolved, I hope.” 

She narrowed her eyes, looking up at him suspiciously. “Oh, I’m sure.” She didn’t like how coolly he’d said all of that. There was more to unpack here, for sure.

Walter seemed to notice her expression and changed his. “How do you feel?” he asked, swiftly and subtly changing the course of her thoughts. 

“Like death,” she said, laughing quietly. But once she really thought about it, it wasn’t quite so funny. “Not good,” she said eventually, because he just stood there, staring down at her morosely like it was killing him that he couldn’t do something to fix her, or give her good news. She smiled small and leaned back to stare up at the ceiling. “If I do have one in me, you better kill it before it grows up,” she ordered quietly. She turned to look at him, noting that his deeply troubled expression had not changed. “And also know that you did everything you could to keep me safe, Walter. If they got to me, it’s not your fault.” She looked away, briefly considering everything the man – synthetic, whatever – beside her had done for her even though he didn’t have to. She could never have asked him to give up his hand or so much of his time and energy for her like he had, or so many other things he’d done so willingly and so well. 

“I’m not willing to give up on you until it’s done and over with and we know for sure,” was all he said, mouth set in a grim line. “I’ll bring a chair so I can sit with you.” He took a breath before saying, “Like I always do.” 

She smiled genuinely, but again, it was small. “Maybe we can finish  _the Tempest_?” she asked. 

This sparked a slight upward curve in his lips, and she felt satisfied with that response. “Of course,” he said. He turned and left the room, and she pondered, not for the first time, whether it was duty that kept him so loyal to her and so dedicated to her wellbeing . . . Or something else. 

“Duty,” she hummed to herself quietly, and she realized that the word might have taken on an entirely new meaning since she had met Walter and they’d been thrown into this crazy mess. But all of that was too much for her hot and then cold and sweating and then shivering and pounding and then fuzzy mind to fully comprehend and think through at the moment. She settled back into her pillows, content to wait for Walter to come back and recite the end of  _the Tempest_  for her. It wasn’t every night she was awake enough to listen, and he felt like telling stories. Though she still wasn’t sure why exactly he’d chosen this one in the first place. 

 _The very instant I saw you did my heart fly to your service, there resides to make me slave to it._ The line stood out in her memory above the rest of the story, though she didn’t know why. Maybe Walter had said it in a certain way that stuck in her head for some reason. Maybe she was just fixating on the last thing she’d heard before she fell asleep during one of his recitations over the last few months. Maybe it meant something deeper to her, or even to him. But she was way too drowsy and uncomfortable to even go there right now. All of this could be thought about later.  _If_ she survived the next 24 hours without birthing a disgusting monstrosity through her chest. What wonderful prospects. 


	6. Bloody

_It felt like something small at first, like a gas bubble in her stomach that was causing some vague discomfort. She became aware of how much she was sweating and began to shake, wondering what was setting this off. “Walter?” She squeaked quietly, looking around the room. But he was nowhere to be found, the doorway to the hallway beyond her room a still blanket of darkness._ _Surely_ _he’d have lit one of the lanterns there, at least. Surely there should be some dim light flickering beyond the empty frame._ _Surely_ _he wouldn’t have wanted to leave her in the dark. The room she was lying in was_ _depressingly_ _lit in and of itself, and the terrible thought that something had happened to Walter formed itself in her head. Worse was the next thought, the one that maybe_ nothing  _had happened to Walter and he’d just left her here like this. She was sick, but-_

_She lurched up into a sitting position in surprise, hand flying to her stomach automatically. She pressed her palm against the space just below her sternum, where her chest turned from hard bone to soft abdominal flesh. “Walter,” she called, more loudly this time. He was usually so close or at least listening for her. The odd, jolting sensation from within came again and she stared down at her chest, understanding dawning on her. “No,” she mumbled, crab-crawling backwards in her makeshift bed until her shoulders hit the wall behind her. She crumpled there with her back pressed firmly against the cool stone, staring down at her chest all the while. “Damn it. No. No!” That feeling was there again, more_ _persistent_ _this time, stronger. Now it bordered more on slight pain along with the abnormal pressure._

_Her breath was coming quicker and more heavily. She tore her gaze away from her torso for a few seconds, eyes darting frantically around the room. No weapons, nothing to destroy the thing. Though that was a stupid idea, of course. It was here_ _announcing_ _its presence, because it was going to destroy her. She’d be better off killing herself before_ it  _killed her. “Fuck,” she spat, tears prickling at her eyes. There was nothing here that would help her. No furniture, no blunt objects. No Walter. She put both_ _hands on_ _that same place under her sternum, pressing down. As if that would help. One hand flew to her mouth when the pressure came again, this time so much more forceful. So much more painful. It felt like she was being turned inside out, starting with her ribcage. Something cracked audibly and she understood it was one of her ribs._ That  _was a sickening realization. Now the tears were flowing freely, and she was sobbing. She pulled her knees up to her chest and lurched with every movement of the thing inside of her, distraught._

_“Walter,” She pled loudly, throwing her head to the side in agony and searching the empty doorway one last time. There wasn’t much time. If he was going to come and put her out of her_ _misery_ _he needed to do it now. Still, he didn’t appear out of the dark hall. “Walter!” she shrieked as another_ _forceful thrust outward from within her ribcage broke the skin, and flecks of her own blood landed on her face. This was it. He was too late. She was too afraid to look down at herself, frantically staring at the door. “Walter! Please!” A sound the likes of nothing she’d ever produced before escaped her throat and she felt a horrible pressure as she listened to the sound of her own bones being broken. A wet tearing sensation quickly followed and she couldn’t help but look down now. Something was clawing and shoving its way out of her, and it had almost succeeded. Her hands had minds of their own now, clawing at her chest in a violent last effort to rid herself of the thing causing her pain. She had time to take in a gasping breath and scream his name one more time, but it was cut off midway through as it morphed into a shrill howl. The noise was no longer coming from her lungs, sourced straight from something deeper inside. “WALT-”_

“I’m here. Please wake up. What’s wrong? What can I do to make it better?” Walter’s voice came to her as if through a hazy distance from somewhere very far away, but she could still hear how unusually shrill it sounded. His words were running together and a distinct mechanical rumbling was present beneath his voice. Then abruptly all of the sound stopped being so distant and seemed very much right up in her face. “Dani?” 

She snapped her eyes open and realized she was thrashing. More notably than that, Walter’s face was directly above her own. She looked down at her chest, only stopping her frantic, erratic movements when she saw that there was nothing protruding from her. Her shirt was torn and she was bleeding, but there was no gaping hole. Her insides were not on her outsides. Walter was holding her forearms firmly in his one hand and had placed his injured arm across her collarbones, pressing down with enough of his weight to try and stop her from moving. 

She gaped at her bloody torso, noting that her – bloody? –  hands were shaking violently in Walter’s hold. She hiccupped through a sob and stared up at him, confused. 

He just stared back, clearly searching her face for some kind of answer to questions she didn’t believe she’d heard him ask aloud. After a few seconds he simply exhaled slowly. “Are you really awake?” he asked at length. 

She blinked, confused by this question. “I think so?” 

He neither tightened his hold on her wrists nor loosened it, blinking in return. “If I release you, are you going to hurt yourself?” 

Now she blinked several times, genuinely confused. “No? Why would I do that?” The hysteria from earlier was still present and lingering just under the surface, but the shock of finding herself in such a starkly different situation than what she’d  _been_  in was just enough to keep that at bay . . . for now. 

Walter just tilted his chin to look down at her ripped shirt and torn skin, as if that explained everything. 

She swallowed a lump in her throat, not understanding. “What?” she asked. But the realization was slowly coming to her. “Did . . . I do that?” 

“You’ve been screaming and flailing about for nearly an hour. It’s the worst case of a night terror I’ve ever seen.” 

“Night terror,” Dani repeated dumbly. “. . . An hour?” 

Walter was staring at her again, eyes boring into hers like he thought if he just focused hard enough, everything she’d seen while unconscious would share itself with him. “I came as soon as you called for me,” he explained, releasing some of the tension in his grip on her arms. It was obvious he intended to let her go, but was easing through the action. “When I arrived you were thrashing, tangled up in the blankets. You’d knocked over the heating unit and the room’s temperature had dropped dangerously. It’s no wonder your already-ill body reacted badly.” Again he glanced down at her bloody skin, and there was a pang of guilt in his voice when he continued. “You’d been clawing and tearing at your own chest. You ripped your clothing and scratched yourself until you bled. I would have been able to stop you  _and_ tend to the wound if I had two hands . . .” He was frowning when he looked up at her again, gently leaning back as he took the pressure of his bad arm off of her collarbones. He released her wrists but his hand lingered at her left one, fingertips brushing her skin. 

She couldn’t tell if he was waiting to see if she’d try to injure herself again or if he was just maintaining the contact in an effort to comfort her. To comfort them both? Raising her right hand, she rubbed her eyes and found that her cheeks were wet. There was no reason to take her other hand away from him, not yet. She took a deep breath and looked down at her chest again, assessing the damage she’d apparently inflicted with her own fingernails. She’d been dreaming? It had felt so  _real_. Recalling what had made her claw at her chest brought on other concerns. “Walter,” she said quietly. 

The seriousness in her voice snapped his attention to her right away. He was still in the process of leaning away slowly, moving to give her some space. He said nothing. 

She was dead serious, but something in her voice refused to cooperate and betrayed how close to tears she was. “You have to promise me something.” 

He nodded immediately. “Anything.” 

Again, her eyes were drawn to her bloody chest. “If I start to show signs that  _one of them_  is  _in_  me, you have to kill me before it can.” 

Walter had turned, presumably to find something to dress her wounds, but now he stopped abruptly. Froze in place, more like. He turned to look at her, leveling her with the most disagreement she’d ever seen painted across his face. “I would never-” he started, but she didn’t want to hear it. 

“If it comes down to it and my options are to die in excruciating pain as something forces its way out of my chest or to die instantly at your hands, you know exactly which one I’d choose. I expect you to honor that.” It was a god awful lot to ask of him, she knew. But she didn’t want to die like that. And after her  _dream_  . . . A shudder ran through her involuntarily.

She felt an argument coming just by the way he drew in his breath before he answered. “But I-” 

She shook her head and he stopped, clearly understanding that his disagreement wasn’t welcome here. “I’m sorry, Walter,” she said quietly. “But this isn’t up for debate. I’ll shoot  _myself_ in the face before I let one of those things be how I go.” 

His eyes widened, but he stayed quiet for a few seconds. When he did open his mouth, he looked at her hesitantly, unsure if she’d even let him speak. 

This prompted a heavy guilt to settle in her stomach for interrupting him and cutting him off the way she had, but she didn’t know how to apologize for it. 

“If I may,” he began slowly, “you’ve been napping for nearly two hours. And all this some time  _after_  your symptoms began. You’ve already been sick far longer than any of the previous victims to David’s plague. It’s not so unlikely that you haven’t been infected at all.” 

She listened to what he had to say, but shook her head before he was even finished. “It could be a different strain, or something else entirely,” she reminded him. Then, quietly and hating that she had to do it, she said, “You said you’d promise anything.” 

Walter sighed heavily and moved away, seeming unaware of the way her face dropped when his touch left her wrist. “I didn’t realize . . .” he started, but then he looked at her again, obviously having given up on that excuse. 

“Do you really want to watch one of those things kill me?” she asked softly, understanding that this line of reasoning may be the only way she got the android to agree with her. 

“Of course not,” he said immediately. There was a lull in conversation as she watched him and he stared down at his stump wrist like it had some kind of answer. Only their breathing and Dani’s occasional sniff interrupted the heavy quiet. 

She let him think for a few minutes, shifting where she lay and fiddling with the shredded edges of the hole in her shirt. After some deliberation, she moved to pull it over her head and used the torn fabric to wipe some of the blood away. For as short as she kept her nails, she’d done a hell of a number on herself. Some of the lines were shallow scrapes and some were much, much deeper. The hazy feeling left in her head after her dream was fading now, and real pain was beginning to set in. 

“I promise,” Walter said quietly. 

She looked up at him, surprised. “Thanks, Walter.” 

He looked like a kicked puppy. “I’d rather not dwell on it.”

She sighed. “Thank you. For stopping me from hurting myself more than I already had when you got here.” She shivered and folded her arms over her chest, not exactly self-conscious but also far too aware of the fact that she was entirely undressed from the waist up. The cold in the room was causing certain bodily reactions and she felt oddly shy about it, what with Walter’s tendency to look her over with such medical precision and studying eyes. 

He seemed to notice her discomfort. “I brought down some clothes earlier while you were sleeping, before the night terrors began.” He moved to a stack of clothing she hadn’t noticed on the desk near the bed. After he handed her a new shirt, he took a few seconds to right the heating unit and turn it on again. “I’ll go and get some bandages to clean you up,” he promised, heading for the door. 

She had to bite her lip to keep herself from asking him not to leave her alone. She managed to keep her mouth shut and he left. Looking around, it became obvious that there were some stark differences between the room she was in now and the one surrounding her in her dream. Walter had brought down minimal furnishings and belongings to her temporary space in real life, whereas in the dream the room had been bare and dark. This room was relatively well lit and the hallway beyond glowed with gentle light. And of course Walter was here. He was always there when she needed him. The dream had just been playing on her worst fears and her thoughts about whatever was making her sick. Walter would never lock her down here and leave her to die. 

She believed this, but still sighed in relief when he walked back through the door. She’d pulled her new shirt on in his absence, careful to keep the fabric pulled up and away from her wound. Walter immediately made to dress the wound and cover it up with clean bandages so that she could move the hem of the shirt down to where it belonged. As he worked, he casually said, “Whatever you dreamt was obviously disturbing. Do you want to talk about it?” 

Dani swallowed the suddenly-there lump in her throat and stared hard at the side of Walter’s head as he bent over her to work. She didn’t know how to answer. Before she could come up with anything, he continued. 

“If you don’t remember or you don’t want to discuss it, that’s perfectly fine. I only wondered what made you tear at yourself like this.” 

She looked down and away, attempting again to swallow that stubborn lump. “I was here,” she started slowly. She hated that her voice wavered on the last word. “Alone,” she said after a few seconds, licking her lips. “It was really dark and I didn’t know where you were. You didn’t come when I called and . . .” She stopped, steadying her breathing. He was right here, tending the very place that a creature would be tearing out of. Everything was fine. Sort of. “There  _was_  one in me and it started to shove its way out.” There was a long pause as she tried to decide whether she wanted to include any more detail than what she’d already said. Then something occurred to her. “I was screaming?” she asked eventually. “Was it just screaming or were there words?” 

Walter finished what he was doing and set aside his leftover medical supplies, gently pulling her shirt down to cover her stomach. “They were terrible screams,” he said honestly. He took a brief moment to clean her hands up.

She pulled the blankets up over her abdomen and worked the fabric anxiously between her fingers, all of the wracked nerves and panicked instincts from her dream threatening to resurface. 

“But mostly . . . my name.” It sounded as if he wasn’t sure how to express that detail, or if it was important.

That made sense. “You just weren’t there,” she said quietly, somewhat embarrassed. “I was dying, and it seemed like you’d locked me down here in the dark and you weren’t coming back.” 

He’d risen and was standing a few paces away, but now he took a step towards her. “I would never-” he said, beginning with the same words he’d used earlier to refuse her request. 

“I know,” she assured him before he could on. And it was true. Walter had never done anything in the entire time she’d known him to make her question whether he would come to her aid when she needed him.

“I would be there,” he said solemnly. 

She believed him. “I know,” she said again. “That’s why I made you promise.” 

He leaned away as if her words caused him physical pain. 

She sighed, unwilling to stay on this dreary, teary, panic-inducing topic. “Has Irwin stopped in to visit me yet?” she asked, hoping to change the subject. 

Walter’s expression hardened in a flicker of the same way she’d once seen him look at David. But only a flicker. “Not yet,” was all he said, looking away. That odd mechanic rumble was part of his voice again. 

“Are you okay?” she asked immediately. 

He seemed to know what was concerning her. “I believe so. It seems to be a small conflict within my programming. Nothing I can’t resolve with a short span of down time.” 

She hummed, looking down at the edge of the blanket that she was still worrying with her restless fingers.  _Funny_. For a moment she’d almost thought the sound denoted some kind of extra emotion in Walter’s voice. She must have been wrong. 

He smiled at her, closed-lipped. He was a terrible liar. 

 _Funny_. 

Several more days of this bizarre sickness passed. For the first few the fever and shivers persisted, and the cycle of burying herself in blankets as she shuddered with chills and then peeling off every layer on her and lying on the opposite side of the bed from the heater continued. The last days were milder, though, and she could finally keep down more than just broth and water. Walter was delighted with her progress, but Dani felt like she’d been dragged through hell all over again. The muscle aches and deep exhaustion that her illness left her with had her feeling grumpy and trying her best not to snap at everything around her. There was also the irksome fact that the only other human in this place had not visited her once. Whenever she asked Walter about it, he brushed it off with vague answers. Not that it really mattered that much to her, of course, but she  _had_  spent time with Irwin when he was comatose. She began to wonder if that shouting match she’d heard before had included some important details that her synthetic companion had chosen to leave out when he told her about it. 

After hardly more than a week in bed, she felt completely better. Still bone tired and weak from lack of any heavy foods, but definitely over whatever had been ailing her. She chose to wait until she was absolutely positive she was healthy to leave the room in the lower levels, always cautious about the potential danger she would be putting Irwin in. It surprised her that she didn’t see him for several days after moving back up to David’s room. Walter resumed his vigil at her bedside chair and their previous schedule seemed back to normal, and everything but Irwin seemed to have fallen right back into place. The horrendous thought that something might have gone truly awry in their argument and Walter might have  _dispatched_  the man occurred to her briefly, but she shook that away in an instant. Walter would  _never_. The android was still strangely evasive about the whole thing, so she didn’t mention her concerns to him. 

When she did come across the man, she realized immediately that he’d been avoiding her. Their initial interaction after her recovery consisted entirely of her greeting him from across the room and him offering a curt answer before leaving quickly. Over the next month he slowly became less scarce, but something was definitely  _off_  about his behavior. It didn’t take long to observe that Walter and Irwin were never in the same room together or if they were, it was only at a distance and with Dani between them. Walter seemed completely nonchalant about the entire thing, but Irwin was absolutely avoiding the synthetic. This bothered Dani more than she realized, as after a few weeks of watching the different behavior, she couldn’t help but bring it up. Walter had been so evasive this entire time, she figured maybe Irwin would give her a straighter answer. But as soon as she broached the topic, any progress made in the way of returning to the vague acquaintanceship they’d had before seemed lost. 

“Did something happen while I was sick?” she asked as she casually as she could. They were seated in the main room several paces apart from each other, and Walter had left on some kind of supply run. It was one of those rare occasions when she knew her conversation with Irwin was truly private. Not that Walter ever intentionally eavesdropped, but with his improved hearing and tendency to always walk the temple to keep watch, his hearing things was inevitable. 

The previous conversation, light and feeble as it had been, immediately felt dead. Irwin shifted in his seat to look at her with an expression she could only have described as  _shut down_. He said nothing, just stared at her. 

Dani felt the need to explain herself. “I heard yelling the first day I moved down there.” She shrugged. “It sounded kind of serious and you two might not be acknowledging it, but something’s different since I’ve been back.” No answer, so she prompted, “Between you and Walter.”

Irwin snorted at the last part and stayed quiet for a few minutes. Just when she was trying to think of a new way to frame the question because he obviously wasn’t going to answer it this way, he spoke. She noted immediately that the things he was saying and the nonchalance with which he was saying them just didn’t match up. His expression and his voice were casual, almost dull. But his words . . . “Oh. You mean the day he threatened to kill me.” Those were  _not_ dull, casual words. 

She stared at him. “What?” Walter would  _never_. 

He frowned at her. “You heard me.” 

She tried to keep her composure if only for appearances, but felt her eyes beginning to shift back and forth aimlessly as her thoughts shifted with them. What a bizarre accusation. How ridiculous. She thought of David and of the fact that he had supposedly once been a well-behaved android who maintained acceptable or even excellent human relations. But then David . . . “Oh my god,” she muttered, not intending for Irwin to hear. Walter had mentioned some slight programming conflicts and smaller malfunctions he suspected, but aside from his interactions with Irwin he seemed like the same synthetic she’d initially met on  _the Covenant_. 

“Pretty much,” Irwin agreed, and she snapped her head up to look at him, realizing that he had heard her after all. 

But the way he said it was so smug. Something else occurred to her. “Why would he do that?” she asked him, that same fierce urge to protect Walter that she’d always felt now bubbling up inside of her. What had been said between them? 

Irwin shrugged and turned away. “All I told him was that I didn’t want you getting me sick. That was it.” 

A strange instinct to put distance between them began to unfold in Dani’s stomach. Somehow those casual words left her feeling vaguely threatened. She wondered just how Irwin had chosen to voice his health concerns to Walter. There must have been some kind of misunderstanding. That, or by one man’s hand or the other, she wasn’t safe here anymore. Not like she used to be. 

She rose from her chair, done with the conversation. Judging by the way he’d turned and how quiet he’d become, she guessed Irwin was done talking, too. Walter would be back soon, she hoped. In the meantime she intended to retire to their room and wait for him there. There was a weapon there. She’d not had to use the gun since before Walter brought her back here after the crash, but it was kept there in case she ever needed it. After discussing it, they’d chosen not to give Stevens a weapon until they were sure about his mental health after his coma and the loss of his wife. As far as he knew, they didn’t need guns within the complex so they didn’t just keep them lying around.

Dani wasn’t positive about  _who_  exactly she felt the need to protect herself from, but her sense of security within the temple walls had been suddenly shaken. She had no plans to hunker down in the corner by the bed with the weapon in hand, not at all. But at least she’d be close enough to it to defend herself if that need arose. She knew Walter would come find her as soon as he got back. They were going to have to discuss some things. God, she hoped he had an explanation that could put everything to rest. Walter was not David, could never be David. But, Dani grudgingly acknowledged, there was always the potential for him to become something else. 


End file.
